After a good night’s sleep trying to stave off jetlag, we rose and grabbed some breakfast at our hotel. They had a nice self-serve spread of bread, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, fruit, pastries, and coffee.
Once we were finished we took off walking three kilometers to head to the District Six Museum.
Though our trip took place in late May going into June, South Africa was heading into their winter, so we did see some not great weather. It had rained hard all night, but thankfully was starting to clear off come morning. We enjoyed various fun buildings on our walk over to the museum.
Once we arrived at the museum we bought our tickets and began looking around. Unfortunately we had arrived too late for a guided tour unless we wanted to wait for more than an hour. We opted to just tour by ourselves.
The history of District Six is definitely heartbreaking, so it was good to get to learn a little more. It started out as a primarily black area. Due to the laws in the area it essentially became a ghetto as regulations made it impossible to do any kind of improvements. However, as Cape Town began to grow, white South Africans began to want to live in the area closer to the center of the city. For that reason it was declared a whites only area and the black families were forced out to the townships and their homes were torn down to modernize for new owners.
Like any tragic period of history, it was hard to read some of the stories, but definitely meaningful to understand more of South Africa’s history.
After we finished exploring the museum we headed over to the Company’s Garden. The Garden is the oldest in South Africa, started by the Dutch East India Company to be able to raise produce to sell to passing ships along the Cape.
We wandered for a bit before heading over to Motherland, a local coffee shop where we had planned to catch a free walking tour. We had opted to do the 11 o’clock Historic City Tour, hoping we might get a better overview of Cape Town. Free walking tours are one of my favorite things to do in a new city. They are tip based, and thus far I’ve only had a couple I didn’t like.
We had a coffee from Motherland while waiting for our tour to begin. It was delicious and just the thing to get us energized for some more walking.
Our guide Tim took us and one other tourist who joined a bit later on a walk around the area, pointing out various places and giving general information about the history of South Africa as a whole and Cape Town specifically. Though I know I learned some South African history in school, it was definitely minimal, so I appreciated getting more insight into the country.
We walked by the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town City Hall where Nelson Mandela made his speech, the old Dutch Reform Church, and the parliament. We ended back in the Company’s Garden again and this time were surprised to see some albino squirrels. We did another walk through the garden, admiring some Egyptian Goose goslings.
We decided to mosey back to the hotel as our energy was beginning to wane. We opted to walk back to our hotel, but this time detour through the Bo-Kaap neighborhood.
Bo-Kaap is a beautiful neighborhood known for their brightly colored houses. The weather had truly become gorgeous by that point, so we enjoyed walking around and snapping some pictures before making the trek back to the hotel.
We took a little time to just relax in the afternoon and rest before taking off a little before dinner time. Since we’d arrived back in the hotel earlier, we opted to head out a little earlier, giving us some time to explore the waterfront.
So we meandered down to the Victoria and Alfred waterfront to walk around a little. We admired the beautiful views and took plenty of pictures. It was especially fun to get to see the Cape fur seals lounging on the piers.
Finally we were getting hungry so we stopped to get some dinner at Den Anker, a Belgian restaurant along the water. I felt inspired by the scenery so had some poison et frites (fish and chips).
We finished the meal off with some delicious chocolate mousse. Satisfied with the amazing day we headed back to the hotel. It was our final day in Cape Town, but there was plenty of adventure left to be had.
To Roam the Roads of Lands Remote 