29 September 2013

Walking through History - Celebrating our Heritage

I have no problem with Heritage Day turning into Braai Day. After all, cooking over a fire goes back to the days when man first discovered that fire might make his food taste better and cuts across many cultural boundaries - that's quite a heritage to celebrate. But I do believe that we still have a lot of work to do in order to get to know each other in this country.

In that spirit I was happy to see that Footsteps to Freedom City Walking Tours had joined IzikoMuseums and the Taj Hotel to offer free walks exploring the places of historical significance in the city centre during Heritage week. It seemed an appropriate way to spend Heritage Day and I invited an Australian visitor along. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the crowd of about 40 people who turned up consisted of mostly South Africans, eager to learn more of their own heritage. 

Traders on Greenmarket Square

Old Town House
We started off in Greenmarket Square, the second oldest public space after the Grand Parade, which served as a general meeting place and where water was collected from the public water pump which stood in the centre of the square. I didn’t know that the front door of the Old Town House, which stands on the edge of the square, is the place from which you measure distance in Cape Town. 


Pincushion Proteas or Waratahs

Next was the colourful flower market, Trafalgar Place, where there were beautiful pincushion Proteas on sale. My Australian friend pointed out that she knew them by a different name back home – Waratahs (yes, the name of one of their rugby teams). 



The City Hall

The Bell tower of the Groote Kerk

The Slave Memorial on Church Square

A slave memorial, consisting of slave names engraved on marble slate, has been erected on Church Square.  Slaves socialized here while their owners attended church services in the Groote Kerk. Opposite the memorial and church is The Slave Lodge which housed slaves, convicts and political prisoners between the 17th and 19th centuries. 

Government Avenue used to be the place to see and be seen.  
Our walk continued down Government Avenue past Tuynhuis where guests of the colony used to stay and which is now the president’s office. A blocked-up water channel which was originally dug by slaves runs in front of this house. We were reminded that the fresh water which runs down from Table Mountain was the main attraction of the Cape as a halfway stop on the way to the east. It seems a pity that we are not harnessing this water for use instead of letting it all flow into the sea. 

View of Table Mountain from the Company Gardens

Statue of Sir George Grey in front of National Library
The statue of Governor George Gray is the first statue of a person to be erected at the Cape. At the end of his term he donated his books to start the National Library. We ended our tour in front of St. George’s Cathedral which I remember as a safe place to gather during the apartheid years. Opposite the cathedral, in front of the Mandela-Rhodes building, is a piece of the Berlin Wall which was presented to Nelson Mandela on his first state visit to Germany in 1996.

Our guide was knowledgeable and fed us many interesting tidbits like the fact that the floor of the Groote Kerk was originally sand so that it could be dug up in order that members of the congregation could be buried there. 

I highly recommend this tour to locals and visitors alike. It was a worthwhile way to spend two hours. 

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