Stormy Travels: Castle of Good Hope

Today is Tuesday, January 31st! It is our 4th day in Cape Town and we decided to sleep in! We fell asleep around 1am last night, so it was definitely needed. I set an alarm for 9am thankfully because I'm pretty sure we could have slept in even longer! We reluctantly pulled ourselves out of bed and got ready for breakfast before it ended for the day. We again had breakfast in the lounge on the 19th (top) floor as we just can't stay away from the delicious eggs royale. After eating Hunter checked flight loads while we finished our drinks to check on what our best routes would be to exit Cape Town. A lot of the flights here are payload optimized, meaning they restrict capacity because it's an ultra-long haul flight and they also put a lot of cargo in the belly. We have options with Delta, United, Virgin, and some others, so we should be able to get out, it's just a matter of picking our best bet for business class seats!

Breakfast with a view!

After breakfast, we went to the room to finish getting ready to go out. I packed the backpack and we were off in an Uber to the Castle of Good Hope. The walk to the entrance was full of informational signs, including about the two guardian lions one of which was shattered by a falling flagpole before being painstakingly rebuilt.

On the way, we passed a lovely fountain

The entrance to the castle

Details of the lions on the entrance gate. The ones at the gate are replicas, with the originals inside the museum. The female lion was damaged, but they managed to reconstruct it from the rubble.

Details about the moat

More moat details

The original shoreline used to be much closer to the castle, along a road now known as the straand which means shore in Dutch, but now it has been pushed back considerably through land reclamation

The blue line is the original shore line

The sign on the outside of the castle

Castle door

After entering the complex, we learned there was a free tour starting in 30 minutes. We decided to check out one of the areas while waiting called the military museum. Here we learned about the castle's original Dutch heritage as a refueling point for the Dutch East India Company on trade routes between Europe and Asia. The castle was actually a replacement for a smaller original fort with mud walls but it kept disintegrating in the rain so they decided to upgrade to a stone castle. After reading all about the wars that went on, between the Dutch, the British, the settlers (mainly Dutch), and various local groups we found the tour guide at the meeting point and funnily enough, he started back where we did in the war museum. The castle despite being incredibly formidable was never really attacked in its entire 500-year history as every handover was done peacefully since the castle's former Dutch owners already saw the writing on the wall. After that, we headed out to the grounds to explore the gigantic fortress. Our tour guide's name was Steven. I really liked his style of guiding which was a key points-based and fast-paced tour.

Hunter exploring the ramparts

After the military museum area, we moved to the governor's fountain and swimming pool (which was very impressive for the 1600s) through a portico that went through the governor's long residence which was built along an interior diving wall of the castle. The cobblestone street under the residence was replaced with wood cobblestones so that horses and such going through would not wake the sleeping governor. The incredible pool complex had been filled in during the 100s of yers of subsequent use by the British of the castle as an active military fortification (technically it is still a South African military fortification today) and Steven explained it had only recently been uncovered. He also said that in the future they would be closing the castle down completely do do more thorough preservation work since it had been somewhat neglected during covid.

Wooden cobblestones

Then we moved to the castle's prison which the ever-subtle South Africans had just labeled "torture". Steven was not afraid to go into great detail about the torture methodologies designed to elicit confessions as well as to leave us in a cell with the lights off. From there we continued our tour walking around the far wings of the pentagonal-shaped castle.

The red windows were for ammunition and the green for everything else.

Then we moved up to the ramparts of the castle , where each of the five corners served as its own mini fort able to protect and provide fire support to the adjacent corners. This design was widely used by the Spanish starting in the 1400s and quickly copied by everyone else such as this Dutch fortification built 200 years later.

The other side of this street would have been ocean at one point

This semi-circular track is a machine gun mount, Hunter suspects from the second World War era

When we were done with the tour, we headed into the two additional exhibits on display. The first was the colonial art display. This was interesting because while the art was collected in a different era with different values rather than just throw it out they decided to reframe it and use it as a teaching tool to help future generations learn about changing norms and the ideas behind art.

This painting was a good example of art that, from modern context, makes very little sense. The proportions of Table Mountain, Devil's Peak and the Lion's Head are all off, and they are covered in snow which would have been an extreme rarity. The modern curators used this evidence to point out that the artist might not have ever even been to Cape Town and was rather working off second-hand descriptions.

Dutch East India Company Cannon

Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie logo

Further detail of the explanation about the painting that makes no sense

Another strange painting, this artist shows both the old fort and the new castle in the same painting, except they never really coexisted, so this was likely impossible... but at least he got the shape of Lion's Head and the signature "Cape Doctor" cloud right

The governor's 100+ seat table

VOC China

The other exhibit was the old second-in-command's house filled with period-correct items.

Beautiful painted floors

Lovely old chest

A sedan chair

Once we were finished looking around the Castle of Good Hope, we caught an uber to the special lunch place Hunter picked out from the recommendation of a Flight Attendant he talked to one time at work. The restaurant was called Bokaap Deli in the famous Bo-Kaap area formerly known as the Malay Quarter. This area is known for its proud Muslim heritage, brightly colored homes, and cobble-stoned streets! We were quickly seated and our order was taken promptly. Hunter ordered the Masala Steak Burger And Chips and I ordered the Mediterranean Grill Platter. We also ordered and drank 2 entire liters of sparkling water, Hunter and I always enjoy visiting countries where the water is the same price still or sparkling and it feels better to pay for it when its sparkling. While waiting for our lunch, we noticed that there was a large candy store, of American candy, in the back of the store. We were definitely checking that out after eating! When our food came, we were amazed with the beautiful presentation! It tasted just as good as it looked and my lamb kabob along with everything else on my platter was AMAZING. The candy store on the other hand was a bit of a letdown because it was all things we could get at home, for more money, however, I am certain the locals and ex-pats LOVE this spot since its probably the only place you can buy Gushers and Flaming Hot Cheetos in SA!

Heading back out of the castle to get lunch now

My massive platter

Hunter's locally spiced steak sandwich

After lunch Hunter took us to the Bo-Kaap Museum, however, due to load shedding (rolling power blackouts), it was closed, which was such a bummer as that was our planned afternoon activity. Instead, we walked down the row of colorful houses and headed towards one of the hop-on hop-off bus stops. We were going to get on and do a tour before our 4pm appointment, but the loop was just long enough that we would miss it, so instead, we grabbed some drinks at the coffee shop next door and when and lounged on the sofas in the bus tour basement.

We walked past motorcycles

At 4pm we walked to the Hertz rental car location a block away to pick up our rental car so we could go on some exciting drives in the next few days that the busses did not go to. When we arrived and started to check in, Hunter noticed he did not have his license with him, so he had to run back to the hotel and back to get it. Since the rental car location closed at 5pm, I stayed back in case it took Hunter longer to come back so we could ensure we had our car, as we had a morning activity we NEEDED it for. Hunter thankfully was quick since the hotel was only just down the street and managed to get from the lobby of the rental car place into an uber back to the hotel up to our room and locate his license in under 5 minutes, and we eventually successfully rented a white VW Polo TSI! I have always dreamed of having a Polo, but they are not imported into the US. The car was pretty new and actually has the same wheels as my Golf GTI!

After picking up our car, we headed to the hotel where we valet parked it for under $5 a day! We were planning on coming back and going for a drive for sunset time, however, we ended up chilling in the hotel working on various activity plans, my blog, and a bit of work. Hunter actually attended a work meeting too, which was a bit weird since he has always had the job he gets to leave at the office, but that's changing a bit now. We spent some time in the lounge having dinner and snacks and then returned to our room. Hunter then went for a quick swim while I finished up my blog and sent it out. We then went to bed since we had to be up at 5:30 tomorrow for our special morning activity!