For the first time ever, we've brought back an old Heritage Tour route!
We first did the East City tour all the way back in 2022, but as a result of finding work at the Free Walking Tours and the Tuin Plein park becoming an unsafe precinct, I regretfully dropped it from the roster.
But thanks to the sterling efforts of the new Lower Gardens CID and the generosity of my manager, I've decided now's the perfect time to fit it back into our schedule.
I've only slightly adapted the original write-up, have a read:
No part of Cape Town is changing faster than the East City...
I mean, have you been down Harrington Street lately? There are like four different development crews on one block all racing each other to finish their luxury flats and co-working venues first! We better get down there before the artisanal yuppies all pay their deposits...
Scarred and traumatised for decades by the murder of District Six, the vertical strip between the Company Gardens and Canterbury Street has only just now become the heart of the CBD's resurgence as a liveable city. Though still sketchy in places, and having borne some of the worst effects of the Covid crash, it seems likely to emerge as the new sub-hub of CPT thrift and glee now that we can all cough in each other's faces again.
Thus I propose we spend a few hours this Sunday afternoon zig-zagging down the backbone of the Buitenkant, charting the web of dank Orwellian bureaucracies, gorgeous Victorian frontages and paradoxical combos of taste and squalor that define the old no-man's-land of Die Vlek.
Remember that the VOC Dutch thought of everything beyond Adderley as either farmland or labourers' quarters, so this'll really be our one true Empire tour through the course of the 19th-Century, reading in stone and cobbles how the Cape Colony evolved in a dozen decades from an accidental Southern Gibraltar to the Queen's favoured getaway spot for her 21st Birthday...
You'll also learn the tallest tales you'll ever get to hear about Dunkley Square, the Cape Mountain Club; Stag's Head, the Perseverance Tavern and the Kimberley Hotel; the antique tronk on Roeland Street, the horror and loveliness of historic Church square, the faint echoes of early modern commerce on Plein Street, the unparalleled freemason's lodge tucked in front of Parliament, the ghosts on Coffee Lane of which just a sign remains, the refurbished churches that attracted new congregations as the Fugard Theatre and the District Six museum, the war stories of Struggle activists locked up in Police HQ and finally the imperial-militaristic-technocratic complex that links City Hall, the Castle, the Grand Parade and the Old Drill Hall across all the many centuries.
Sound heady enough for you?Feel like joining for just one of those?
We'll start at the Perseverance Tavern in the middle of Buitenkant and work our way round and about the bounds of time and space.
All you need to bring are snacks, curious questions, walking shoes, donations, friendly vibes and a deep excitement to truly make this city your own.
Oh yes, and RSVP, won't you?Can't wait to rendezvous x
Yours,CP of CTHT in CPT.
P.S. If you've read this far I'm guessing you'll want even more of the specs, so here goes:- We'll be starting by the entrance to the Perseverance Tavern near the top of Buitenkant Street at 14h00 then finishing by the entrance to the Castle of Good Hope just near the bottom three hours later, so happily park on Roeland Street, do a two-car system or (lord forbid) take the MyCiTi bus the whole day.- We've just put up our ticket prices for the first time in two-and-a-half years, from R120pp to R150pp. Obviously this is just to keep with inflation and to allow the tours to remain a sustainable enterprise for the foreseeable future, but this is still about R50 less per person than our nearest competition. In other words, we are deliberately undercharging the tours so as to keep them affordable for locals and visitors alike and to encourage guests to come…
