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By all rights, Cape Town should be under water.Has anyone told you that the front two kilometres of modern skyscrapers buttressing the Mother City’s CBD are where the sea used to be, once upon a time?
In keeping with the Promethean ideals of the Dutch corporation we were born from, the city and the Union government in the 1930’s and 40’s set out to fight a war against the waves, and ended up winning a Pyrrhic victory.
Out of a graveyard of centuries of shipwrecks we built a modern monumental landscape to meet the demands of the 20th Century, and lost our humanity in the process. Today it seems as difficult to imagine a future, fairer Cape Town as it is to cast our minds back to a time when Table Bay was more of a cove than a catastrophe. But that won’t stop us from trying.
This Saturday at 14h00 I want to invite you on an unprecedented historical walk along the original 19th-Century shoreline of the city, outlining the dreams, memories, nightmares and fantasies that brought us to the weirdness we live in. Starting from the great grain elevator we just re-invented as a Modern Art Museum and ending by the oldest train in Africa behind glass in the middle of today’s station, in two hours we will accomplish the improbable by pedestrianising a landscape constructed for human beings that will never exist.
Along the way we’ll trace the remnants of a buried world of dockside brothels and pubs, crowded noxious fish markets, districts of long-demolished cinemas, boulevards still named for forgotten Nazis, and mausoleums of the high Apartheid era that show off a complementary layer of madness to the history we just escaped from.
Today’s Cape Town is still building into the sea and still struggling to keep track of its citizens, and the Foreshore remains its prime battlefield.
Come join our newest adventure by booking at the Quicket Link below for just R150pp or via DM on 076 033 8164 or [email protected].
There are so few outings like ours and none explicitly designed for locals and wannabe locals to equally enjoy!
Remember your questions, comfortable shoes, water, sun hats and your childlike curiosity for the past and the future!
Yours,
Cameron of CTHT.
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 Zeitz MOCAA at 14h00 then finishing inside the Cape Town Central Station two-and-a-half hours later, so I'd advise doing a two-car system or taking 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 back weekend after weekend.
- Book via Quicket, WhatsApp us on 076 033 8164, E-mail us on [email protected] or Message us via the buttons on our home page to secure your place.
- We have also just introduced a broad scheme of discounts you can apply for on each tour, so please do consult the list below before contacting us!
- And we've decided to partner with a different local NGO or charity for each and every one of our tour routes so that R10 of every ticket purchased goes directly to a good, sustainable, local cause. For theForeshore tour, we've chosen to fund-raise for Straatwerk, and you can inspect their brilliance here:
https://straatwerk.org.za
- This is a consistently well-reviewed heritage-focused walking tour; which is to say that all you'll need to enjoy yourself is curiosity about Cape Town's past (and History in general) and enough stamina to walk just less than 3km in one afternoon (with stops and snacks).
- If you're rejoining us, please please please please please please consider dropping us a short (or extensive) review on our Facebook Reviews or Google Reviews section as it will help spread our gospel of curiosity and playful appreciation across the internet and across the spectrum of all potential visitors to the Cape. It helps us more than you can believe!
- You can also add an optional R10 donation on your ticket which will go directly to the NGO Streetscapes as part of our mission to spread love, enthusiasm, mutual support and respect for all of Cape Town's people and histories. Just think how many people we could help and the difference we could make with a few hundred tours!
- Feel absolutely free to spread the word, invite friends who've been looking for this kind of experience and badger us with every imaginable heritage query. We live for it!
Can't wait to meet ya, really! 🙂
THE CTHT DISCOUNT LIST:
1. Guests over 65 and under 18 can claim a 33% discount on each ticket, at R100pp pre-booked.
2. If you buy tickets for both the Saturday and Sunday tours on one weekend, you can claim R50 off each ticket, at R200pp pre-booked.
3. If you buy a Cape Town Heritage Tours Tote-Bag or any of our books on sale at our Half-Booked Online Shop, you can claim a free tour voucher for each piece of merchandise.
4. You can buy individual advance vouchers for our public tours at R150 each and then message in the week before a scheduled tour. But you can also buy value-packs of five for the price of 4 (R600), 10 for the price of 7 (R1050) or all 18 for the price of 10 (R1500).
5. If you bring 2 or more friends on a weekend tour you can claim R30 back on each of your tickets, at R120pp pre-booked.
6. If you share the posts promoting individual tours you can claim R30 back as well, at R120pp.
7. If you review the tours on Google Reviews, Facebook or TripAdvisor (at any rating) you can claim 50% off your next ticket, at R75pp pre-booked.
8. Likewise if you recommend the tours to a friend who then attends a weekend tour, you can claim 50% off your next ticket, at R75pp pre-booked.
See ya next weekend!
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Zeitz MOCAA, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, S Arm road, Silo district, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
