Picture of The cell in which Mandela lived (Cape Town, South Africa)

The cell in which Mandela served his time at Robben Island

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Famous mostly for being the place where Nelson Mandela spent most of his time in prison during the apartheid years, Robben Island nowadays mostly is of interest for visitors who want to know more about its history.
Robben Island was established as a penal colony in the 17th century by the Dutch, who saw its proximity to Cape Town in combination with the wild, cold ocean separating the island from the mainland as a perfect location for a prison and who named it Robbeneiland, or Seal Island, a name that stuck. The British colonizers continued its usage as a place of isolation, and so did the South African government in its apartheid years. The island was also used as a hospital, and held a colony of lepers which were thus effectively separated from the mainland. From here, Cape Town is only 11km away, but the sea is rough and cold, even though it is reported that several prisoners managed to escape swimming the distance. Near the entrance of Robben Island prison, you can see a Moturu Kramat, a sacred Muslim site, which was built in 1969 in memory of an Indonesian imam kept here in the 18th century by the Dutch, and which has become an important pilgrimage site for Muslims.
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