South Africa Sojourn up town Cape Town

We need to complete the visits that we want to see in town today as tomorrow we plan to head south to Cape Point and places in between. Monday morning we will be driving east on the Garden Route to Wilderness. So we are hoping to knock off the following : Castle of Good Hope, Grand Parade, Company's Gardens, District Six museum and Greenmarket Square. We're going to take the car so parking might be an issue.
It was the Dutch in the guise of the Dutch East India Company who first colonised Cape Town in 1652. The indigenous people were nomadic tribes collectively known as Khoe-San and they shunned the invaders. This resulted in a shortage of labour so the Dutch went elsewhere for their slaves. Madagascar, India, Ceylon, Malaya and Indonesia supplied their needs instead. This explains the unique racial mixture that is Cape Town today. They fortified the port by building the Castle of Good Hope between 1666 and 1679. It has never had to fire or be fired on in anger, and is still the headquarters of the Western Cape military command.

Here we have got the front entrance covered.

Inside the Fort. The little watch tower you can see on the right was for many years the tallest building in Cape Town and, of course you can never keep the mountain out of the frame.

We did the guided tour which means we now know a lot more about the place than we need to. Before the tour started a guy gave a demonstration of firing a muzzle loaded canon, as you can see it worked.

I first parked  the car on the other side of the castle, after taking some advice I moved it to the castle car park but more of that later. District Six Museum after some lunch. District Six was a lively multiracial area, that during the apartheid era was deemed needed for white occupation. The people who had been living there for several generations were forcibly removed and scattered elsewhere. The museum celebrates the area, its people and their lives. It is housed in one of the few remaining original buildings, an old Methodist chapel. It is really very moving especially when you are shown round by former residents. Some people are now moving back as they have successfully reclaimed their land.

On to the Company's Gardens which started life as a vegetable patch for the Dutch East India Company and is now planted up as a pleasant shady park. The Parliament building is alongside the Gardens.

and a wee peep into the gardens

Not far from the Gardens is Greenmarket Square. It is a cobbled square which is home to a lively and colourful craft and souvenir market with vibrant bands and some decent Art Deco added into the mix.

Market House Greensquare 

So it is back to the Castle to get the car but we can go via Grand Parade. The prime historic location in the city. Here slaves were bought, sold and punished. Troops were drilled and Nelson Mandela made his first address to the nation as a free man. Finally in this square stands one of the few memorials solely devoted to the 1899-1902 Anglo Boer War that I have seen. So for Grandfather Charlie I include a photo of it. 

The solider looks distinctly C19 with his ammunition strapped round his chest, quite unlike  the image of the WW1 solider that we are more used to. The gull headress doesn't do him any favours either. 

So back to the car park. only to find to my horror that it is locked. Have you ever tried knocking on a huge castle front gate covered in 4 inch iron spikes to ask if you can please have your car back?