Historic walking tour of Cape Town

After our boat trip, we were both cold and in need of a coffee. However, there was a bus just about to leave, so we decided to get on it and grab a coffee when we got to Long Street. It only takes about 10 minutes from the waterfront to the centre of town, so we didn’t have long to wait to get warm! We went to the café which is a part of the City Sightseeing office, and had coffee and pastries. Both were very welcome!

We then had a bit of time to kill before our free historic walking tour of Cape Town. While we were waiting, I got a message from Timo, who has been staying at Never@Home in Kloof Street since the tour ended on Saturday. He knows that we are booked in there from next weekend and wanted to warn us that it was a real ‘party place’ with a DJ playing loud music from 3pm to midnight every day! He said there are no quiet areas in the whole place. We decided to ask if we can switch our booking and stay at Green Point for the whole time we’re in Cape Town.

Our walking tour started promptly at 1pm. Our guide was Sheldon, a native of the Woodstock neighbourhood of Cape Town. He was incredibly knowledgeable and wanted to impart all of the facts he had to hand in the limited time he had available. The result was that he spoke really quickly and wasn’t always easy to understand! Nevertheless, we really enjoyed the tour and will retrace our steps at some point before we leave the city to visit all of the places on the route that Sheldon recommended! Some of the highlights were:

• St. George’s Cathedral, where Desmond Tutu is buried
• A trendy food market in an old newspaper printing office
• Pure white squirrels in the Company Gardens!
• City Hall with its statue of Nelson Mandela
• The library where Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 21st birthday
• District Six and its museum
• Charley’s Bakery
• Truth Coffee
• A piece of the Berlin Wall
• Maria’s Kitchen – we need to go back for a Gatsby!
• The Race Classification Board
• The damaged Houses of Parliament

After the walk, we tipped Sheldon appropriately, unlike most of the others who gave him 50 rand (about £2.50!). It was clearly stated that he doesn’t earn except if we tip him. For us, we had a very enjoyable two hours and were more than happy to pay for it.Read more