THE CASTLE OF GOOD HOPE

The Castle of Good Hope is the oldest colonial building in South Africa. It was built between 1666 and 1679 by the Dutch India Company, better known as the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie), this pentagon fortification replaced a small clay and timber fort build in 1652 by Commander Jan van Riebeeck, founder of the maritime replenishment station at the Cape of Good Hope.

On 26 April 1679 the five bastions were named after the main titles of Willem, the Prince of Orange, as Leerdam, Buuren, Catzenellenbogen, Nassau and Oranje. In 1936 the Castle was declared a National Monument and remains the best preserved stone and wall fortification of its kind.

It is here where you will experience a typical Cape Street Party, where you will hear the strumming of banjos, squeaking of the sax, the rhythm of guitars and the chirp of shrill whistles.

This is the domain of the descendants of a number of races: San, Khoi, black slaves from Madagascar, Malay, European sailors and settlers; who identify themselves as the "Cape Coloureds".

Tradesmen, fishermen, builders, craftsmen are in the main from poorer families, they have weathered the hardships of life, have an outlandishly frank sense of humour and optimism and have contributed to the cultural fabric of Cape Town. From 1867 this community lived in District Six, as a mixed community until 1901 when black South Africans were the first to be "resettled" and forcibly displaced from the district. In 1966, District Six was declared a white area under the Group Areas Act, and by 1982 the life of the community was over after 60 000 people had been forcibly removed to outlying areas known as the Cape Flats.