The day dawns beautifully – a little cloudy, but relatively warmish. No puffy coats today! We are getting our exercise in by walking over to the Company Gardens area to visit 5 museums. First stop – The Castle of Good Hope. Which means we have to walk past the central bus station – where we toured in 2020 with our great guide who took us through the townships. we knew what to expect – tons and tons of what we call “jitneys” – or private vans that holler out the direction in which they are going and people hail them or just hop on.

Winding our way through the throngs, we emerge on the other side of the jitneys to find the Castle framed by a cloudy Table Mountain.

The Castle is really a bastion fortress built in the 17th C that now houses a couple of interesting museums including the meeting rooms and residences of the Admirals, which included the longest meeting/dining table we’ve ever seen! Along with a “Sedan chair” in which the wealthy were squired around town. Crazy.

There were also wonderful bronze statues, as well as a very neat artist museum that focused on all local artists. Lots and lots of very inventive things – and a nice way to spend some time during our wanderings.

From here it is a short jaunt up the street to the District Six museum. Housed in the former Methodist Church building, this place is an incredible memorial to the history of Apartheid and the effects it had on ordinary people in the country. From the “Name Cloth” where former District Six residents are encouraged to sign their names to the personal stories and artworks and

Walked all over the gardens area, went to 5 museums – from the castle (i.e. fort) of Good Hope to the slave museums and the S. Africa museum (a combo natural history/local/country history place) where we got to experience the S. African life: Electricity load sharing! Forgot about that! Periodic power outages in specific areas. We were on the top floor of the museum when poof! Black out! Thank heavens for our cell phone flashlight! Nary an emergency light around. So we navigated down and for a coupon another visit thru the weekend. A true local experience!

Lunch was awesome at Arnold’s – shared a great salad, calamari and peri-peri chicken liver (that was and Ed only!!!).

Now off to the Village Idiot (cute, huh?) For bbq (Braai) platter and maybe salad.

Tomorrow starts the tour. Schedule already changed – going on cape tour tomorrow, city tour on Saturday. Who cares? They are in control and that’s fine by us. We meet tomorrow morning at 7:30a. Yeah, you’d be happy – NOT. Then bus at 8:30 and we’re off! Long day – but we’ll have a few of them on this trip.

Arnold’s for lunch. They had warthog ribs!!! Passed on them, but shoulda done it!!! Oh, and ostrich carpaccio. Hmmm…

4 museums – total cost? $22 US! Spectacular. Including the Load shedding we got caught in! Forgot about that here in SA. We were on the top floor of the South African museum, when proof! Off go the lights and nary an emergency light around. Out comes the trusty cell phone flashlight and we made our way down to the ground floor easily where we got a coupon for free admittance over the weekend. Cool. Probably won’t use it, but we will offer it to someone on the tour if they want to go in our free time.