Cape Town, Woodstock

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First and oldest of the suburbs as you take an easterly exit from town is Woodstock, unleafy and windblown, but redeemed by some nice Victorian buildings, originally occupied by working-class coloured, and now gentrifying and home to arty folk.


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The focus of the revival is the Old Biscuit Mill in Albert Road with its terrific Saturday-morning market where you can eat your fill, wander about craft shops and visit art galleries.


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Cape Town, Houses of Parliament

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South Africa's Houses of Parliament, on Parliament Street, are a complex of interlinking buildings, with labyrinthine corridors connecting hundreds of offices, debating chambers and miscellaneous other rooms.

Many of these are relics of the 1980s reformist phase of apartheid when, in the interests of racial segregation, there were three distinct legislative complexes sited here to cater to different "races".

The original wing, completed in 1885, is an imposing Victorian Neoclassical building that first served as the legislative assembly of the Cape Colony.

After the Boer republics and British colonies amalgamated in 1910, it became the Parliament of the Union of South Africa.

This is the old Parliament, where over seven decades of repressive legislation, including apartheid laws, were passed.



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The new chamber was built in 1983 as part of the tricameral parliament.
P.W. Botha's attempt to avert majority rule by trying to co-opt Indians and coloured - but in their own separate debating chambers.


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The "tricameral" chamber, where the three non-African races on occasions met together, is now the National Assembly, where you can watch sessions of parliament.
One-hour tours leave from the Plein Street entrance to Parliament.


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Iziko Slave Lodge

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At the top corner of Adderley Street, just as it veers sharply northwest into Wale Street, The Slave Lodge was built in 1679 to house the human chattles of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) - the largest single slaveholder at the Cape.

For nearly two centuries - more than half the city's existence as an urban settlement  - Cape Town's economic and social structures 

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rested on slavery.

By the 1770s, almost a thousand slaves were held at the lodge.

Under VOC administration the lodge also became the Cape Colony's main brothel, its doors thrown open to all comers for an hour each night.

In 1810 the British administration decided to use the lodge as the Supreme Court, a function it retained for over a century.

To clear out the government-owned slaves, it auctioned most off to private individuals, while the remaining two hundred were moved to smaller accomodation in the Company's Gardens, where they remained until they were freed in 1827, nearly ten years earlier than the rest of the slaves at the Cape.

From 1914, the building was used as government offices, and now houses an 
exhibition, still evolving, about slavery.


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Taking an audio headset allows you to follow the footsteps of German salt trader Otto Menzl as he is taken on a tour of the lodge in the 1700s, which gives you a good idea of the miserable conditions at the time.


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Cape Town, Hout Bay & Sandy Bay

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Although no longer the quaint fishing village it once was, Hout Bay still has a functioning fishing harbour and is the centre of the local crayfish industry.


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Some 20 km from the centre, it's a favourite day outing, and despite ugly modern development and a growing shantytown, the natural setting is quite spectacular, with the Sentinel and Chapman's Peak defining the entry to the bay.


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Highly unusual for Cape Town with its legacy of apartheid town planning, poor black areas nose right up to wealthy white ones.


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Isolated Sandy Bay, Cape Town's main nudist beach, can only be reached via a twenty minutes walk from Llandudno; a signposted path leads from the south end of the Llandudnocar park.


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In the apartheid days, the South African Police went to ingenious lenghts to trap nudists, but nowadays the beach is relaxed, so feel free to come as undressed as feels comfortable.
It's a prime gay cruising spot too.


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Iziko South African National Gallery

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The South African National Gallery is an essential port of call for anyone interested in the local art scene, and includes a small but excellent permanent collection of contemporary South African art.
Be sure to take in Jane Alexander's Butcher Boys sculpure, which figuratively portrays South Africa's inherent menace and violence.


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You'll also find a fine display of traditional works from the southeast of the continent, based around a small collection donated by the German government.

The exhibits, which include beadwork, carvings and craft objects, were chosen for their aesthetic qualities and rarity, and represent the gallery's policy of focusing on neglected parts of South Africa's heritage.


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In addition, another room contains minor works by British artists including George Romney, Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, as well as some Pre-Raphaelite paintings.


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The gallery has a café serving light lunches and snacks, as well as an excellent craft shop selling embroidered textiles, basketry, wire products and fine beadwork from South Africa.


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Cape Town, Bantry Bay

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At the westernmost edge of Sea Point lies Bantry Bay, combining the density of Sea Point with the wealth of the Atlantic suburbs; mansions rake back from the Atlantic shore on steep slopes, guarded by the granite boulders of Lion's Head.


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The upmarket resort hotels and self-catering apartments blocks are just far enough for comfort from the hubbub of Sea Point, but close enough should you want to walk to a restaurant.


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Robben Island, the prison's tour

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The ferry trip from the Waterfront takes about half an hour to reach the island.
After arrival you are taken on a bus tour around the island and a tour of prison.
The bus tour stops off at several historical landmarks, the first of which is a beautiful shrine built in memory of Tuan Guru, a Muslim cleric from present-day Indonesia who was imprisoned here by Dutch in the eighteenth century. On his release, he helped to establish Islam among slaves in Cape Town.



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The tour also passes a leper graveyard and church designed by Sir Herbert Baker.

Robert Sobukwe's house is perhaps the most affecting relic of incarceration on the island.
It was here that Sobukwe, leader of the Pan Africanist Congress (a radical offshoot of the ANC), was held in solitary confinement for nine years.
No other political prisoners were allowed to speak to him, but he would sometimes gesture his solidarity with them by letting sand trickle through his fingers as they walked past.
After his release in 1969, Sobukwe was restricted to Kimberley under house arrest, until his death from cancer in 1978.

Another stopoff is the lime quarry where Nelson Mandela and his fellow inmates spent countless hours of hard labour.


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The Maximum Security Prison, a forbidding complex of unadorned H-blocks on the edge of the island, is introduced with a tour through the famous B-section; you'll be guided by a former inmate, after which you're free to wander.
Mandela's cell has been left exactly as it was, without embellishments or display, but the rest have been left locked and empty.


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In the nearby A-section, the "Cell Stories" exhibition skilfully suggests the sparseness of prison life; the tiny isolation cells contain personal artefacts loaned by former prisoners, plus quotations, recordings and photographs.
Towards the end of the 1980s, cameras were sneaked onto the island, and inmates took snapshots of each other, which have been enlarged to almost life size and mounted as the Smuggled Camera Exhibition in the D-section communal cells.

The Living Legacy tour in F-section involves ex-political prisoners guides describing their lives here and answering your question.


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