V&A Waterfront

We have bought hop-on, hop-off bus tickets for tomorrow and Tuesday so, after breakfast this morning, we went out to explore locally and see where we need to go tomorrow. The weather forecast wasn’t good, but the rain held off until we had found our way to the V&A Waterfront complex.

When René had told us about the Victoria and Alfred area of Cape Town, I assumed she’d made a mistake and really meant to say Victoria and Albert! But no! It really is Victoria and Alfred, named after Queen Victoria and her second son, Alfred, who as a midshipman in 1860, tipped the first load of stone to start construction of the breakwater for Cape Town’s first harbour to make it a safe haven for ships all year round.

The V&A Waterfront is a central part of the very beginning of the settlement of the city of Cape Town. In 1654, two years after his arrival in this bay at the foot of Table Mountain, Jan van Riebeeck built a small jetty as part of his task to establish a refreshment station at the Cape. Fresh water and fresh produce were provided to the ships of the Dutch East India company on their arduous and lengthy journey to their outposts in Java and Batavia. The sea and the harbour lie at the heart of Cape Town’s history.

Today, the V&A Waterfront is an iconic 123-hectare neighbourhood full of shops, apartments, bars, and restaurants, as well as a yacht marina, cruise ship terminal, and working freight and fishing harbour. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, both from Africa and overseas.Read more