Nestled on the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet, Cape Town, Cape Town, is considered the mother city of the country, the starting point from which the strong and troubled history of South Africa has taken its steps. Here the advice on when to go to South Africa.
1 Cape Town: historic center, City Bowl
The historic center is called City Bowl and is a true basin surrounded by mountains on three sides. The oldest neighborhoods occupy much of this area, reaching right to the foot of the mountains, which have maintained their primordial beauty intact. The center can be easily explored on foot, starting from Grand Parade, the main square, the point where the city originated in 1652, when a group of settlers led by Jan van Riebeeck, under the orders of the Dutch East India Company, landed in the bay and took root here.
Grand Parade offers very pleasant atmospheres, thanks to the flower stalls, the twice-weekly market, the music, the songs, and the dances that are an everyday occurrence. It is also a rich melting pot of faces and features, a privileged observatory of the city’s ethnic richness.
2 Cape Town: City Hall, City Hall
The City Hall, City Hall, that dominates it, is a building from the early 1900s. It was here that, in 1990, Nelson Mandela gave his first speech as a free man in front of a crowd of one hundred thousand people. Nearby, stands the Castle of Good Hope (originally it was the fort built by the settlers), pentagonal in shape, with the Military Museum also inside.
3 Cape Town: Adderley Street
But the main artery is Adderley Street, which runs through the business district, with its forest of skyscrapers, bank and company headquarters, clad in the typical red sandstone of the Cape. The upper part of Adderley Street is called Government Avenue, with government buildings, the St. George Cathedral, built in the early 1900s, and the Slave Lodge, where slaves were once crowded awaiting sale, now home to a museum about the history of slavery in South Africa and the social history of Cape Town.
The nearby Company’s Gardens offer a magnificent green lung, shaded by centuries-old oaks, with fountains, ponds, and flower beds.
