The Castle of Good Hope is marked by a distinctive pentagonal shape and five stone bastions that project outward from its corners. Built by the Dutch East India Company between sixteen sixty-six and sixteen seventy-nine, it stands as the…
Castle and Grand Parade Walk
Walk through Cape Town's oldest streets to see where early colonial history meets the monumental public squares where South Africa's democracy was born.
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1. Castle of Good Hope
2. Grand Parade
The Grand Parade is a broad, open square in the center of Cape Town, distinguished by the massive, limestone-faced City Hall that looms over its southern edge. Originally a grassy meadow used as a training ground for the garrison of the…
3. Cape Town City Hall
Cape Town City Hall is easily recognized by its honey-colored oolitic limestone facade, imported from Bath, England, and a prominent clock tower modeled on London's Big Ben. Completed in nineteen oh five, the Edwardian building anchors the…
4. District Six Museum
The District Six Museum occupies a former Methodist mission church on Buitenkant Street. Its floor is dominated by a large, hand-painted map of the former District Six, where former residents have inscribed their names and the locations of…
5. The Old Slave Tree Memorial
The Old Slave Tree Memorial sits on a concrete traffic island in the middle of Spin Street, marked by a low, circular stone structure. Built into the paving, a bilingual plaque reads, "On this spot stood the old slave tree," and, in…
6. Church Square
Church Square is a small, cobbled public space defined by a central statue of the nineteenth-century statesman Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr. Flanked by the Groote Kerk on its southern side, the square occupies land that was once part of a garden…
7. Iziko Slave Lodge
The Iziko Slave Lodge is a building with plain, heavy walls located at the corner of Adderley and Wale Streets. Built in sixteen seventy-nine, it stands as one of the oldest structures in Cape Town and was commissioned by the Dutch East…