Walking Tour of Cape Town

Today was amazing! We took a walking tour of Cape Town with our really cool guide (his name was Moses and he was from Uganda). We explored the city of Cape Town while we learned about South African history.

We started out by taking a minibus from Rondebosch to the “taxi rank” at the train station in town. We walked around the taxi rank and saw lots of little shops, mainly womens’ hair shops, in stalls. The taxi rank was bustling with lots of people and our guide reminded us of the importance of holding on to our valuables, as pickpocketing is very common and thieves in Cape Town are quick and clever.

From the train station we walked to the Grand Parade, the main public square in Cape Town. Cape Town City Hall and the Castle of Good Hope surround the square. City Hall is the site where Nelson Mandela gave his first public speech as a free man hours after his release from Robben Island in 1990.

We left the Grand Parade and headed towards Church Square. On the way we passed a very powerful monument remembering the children lost during the apartheid.

At Church Square we saw the historic Slave Lodge, a building that used to house 5000 slaves and is now a social history museum. Our guide told us that Church Square is where many refugees hang out to wait for work hustling and scamming on the internet.

After Church Square we walked to Company Gardens (Cape Town’s version of Central Park). The South African Parliament and St. George’s Cathedral were right outside and the Gardens were beautiful with lots of squirrels, geese, and pigeons. I fed nuts to a squirrel and it ran up my arm!

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After Company Gardens we saw a graffiti piece by Faith47. “All shall be equal before the law” represents the inequality in the justice system. We also saw The High Court Civil Annex and memorial benches from the apartheid.

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We also took a walk down Long Street, a well known road in Cape Town for bars and clubs.

We ended our tour in Greenmarket Square in the center of Town, where vendors were selling various pieces of art, crafts, and other goods. The market was bustling and beautiful.