Montecasino

Montecasino is a 26-hectare casino and entertainment complex in Fourways, in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, which first opened its doors on 30 November 2000. It was designed to imitate an ancient Tuscan village, and the conceit is carried through with unusual commitment: cobbled lanes, shuttered facades, washing strung between windows, and a ceiling painted as a sky that grades from bright daylight at one end of the complex to dusk at the other, so that the "time of day" changes as you walk. The theming is credited to the American design firm Creative Kingdom, at a reported cost of R1.6 billion, and the complex is operated by Tsogo Sun, the JSE-listed gaming group.

The complex is best understood as several attractions stacked on one site. The Teatro, which opened in May 2007 with the South African staging of The Lion King, seats 1,870 at full capacity and is described by South African Tourism as the largest theatre in the country; it was built so that no seat sits further than 33 metres from the stage. The older Pieter Toerien's Theatre and Studio has run drama and comedy since the complex opened. The Montecasino Bird Gardens hold more than 60 species of birds, reptiles and small animals — scarlet ibis, Nicobar pigeons, lemurs, meerkats and sloths among them — along with a collection of over 500 African cycads, and stage short bird demonstrations twice a day, weather permitting. Around thirty restaurants, a cinema complex, ten-pin bowling and on-site hotels fill out the rest.

For visitors, the practical shape of the place matters. The main casino floor trades 24 hours, but South African law restricts gambling to persons 18 and over, so the gaming floor itself is off-limits to children — the piazzas, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and bird gardens around it are not, and families move freely through them. The Bird Gardens keep their own, narrower hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 09h00 to 17h00, with entry charged separately from the rest of the complex. Because everything sits under cover, Montecasino is one of the few Johannesburg outings that is genuinely weatherproof, and it is busiest in the evenings.