History Tour - Route To Resources
details
itinerary
itinerary
Tour 1
Until recently South African history began with the first steps on the southern tip of Africa by European visitors in the 1600’s. Your journey around the Cape traces other footsteps to reveal far more than just 350-years of colonial overlay and influence. The tour contextualises the prevailing mind sets and looks at the value systems of the day. You follow the route to Africa’s resources, unravelling their appropriation, to discover how the landscape was claimed, tamed – and shaped.
Cape Town is rightly called ‘The Gateway to Africa'. As you track visitors from Stone Age times to current arrivals, from asylum seekers to Chinese investors, you’ll find out why this applies. You visit astounding locations, see the sights, savour the food, taste the wines while getting to understand the complexity of the country. You’ll be addressed in at least three languages daily, summonsed alternatively by church bells and the call of the muezzin and startled by the noon day gun.
The enormous popularity of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront attests to the successful regeneration of the harbour, allowing city dwellers to regain access to the sea, connecting people with their roots. Symbolically the reclamation of Robben Island from prison to pilgrimage destination raises the question of how they came be at the Cape in the first place and why people were on the island. To find out, we look at what attracted them – then and now.
SIGNATURE FEATURES
Roll back three centuries in the two oldest buildings in the land – The Castle and The Slave Lodge, themselves significant artefacts, to unveil a rich social overlay
Hear first hand accounts of life on Robben Island, a living museum and World Heritage site that represent landmarks in the timeline to freedom
Unravel the past, from pre history to present times, through stories of individuals living and working in one spot, collated in an 18th century wine cellar and gem of a museum.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
Stand on top of Table Mountain, a 'symbolic landmark for sailor and settler and threshold between north and south, west and east - which separated the Old World from the New, the Occident from the Orient' (after Malvern van Wyk Smith, Shades of Adamastor.)
Over time Robben Island has been a pantry, post office, hospital, whaling station, mental asylum, leper colony, and prison. Now it’s a World Heritage Site, a tangible reminder of the past and pivotal symbol of triumph of the human spirit, where you get a first hand account of prison life from former inmates - confirming that ordinary people ''can rise from being the object of history to becoming the subject of history'' (Nelson Mandela, more than 50 years ago.)
Three centuries of history is revealed in a visit to the oldest building in the country and seat of mighty colonial power, the Castle of Good Hope, and in the range of uses of the former Slave Lodge, variously a brothel, supreme court, and cultural history museum.
At the District Six museum, story telling is used as a way of reconstructing the memory of forced removals and the history of apartheid and its effects on the ordinary people of Cape Town. Walking around cobbled streets in the Bo Kaap, home to Muslims and freed slaves after the abolition of slavery, you hear about the community, their cultural heritage, and why Islam constitutes one of the three major religions of the Cape.
Visit a farm in a lush valley where a former reprobate governor built illegally, using unapproved resources before being sacked and his farm demolished. Today it is an historical showpiece, premier wine estate and perfect spot to absorb Cape history in pastoral tranquility. Witness the conditions in which migrant labourers were compelled to live while toiling these fields at a township museum appropriately close to these majestic mountain ranges and historic homesteads.
Stay over in Stellenbosch, famous for its oak lined streets, historical buildings and university. Drive through the Groot Drakenstein valley that once belonged to C.J Rhodes to a landmark wine estate, lunching under the oaks.
In an 18th century wine cellar near Franschhoek hear stories told of the farm and valley that reflect 8 000 years of footprints, chronicling the progression from stone age man, through colonialism, slavery and apartheid, until the arrival of democracy.
What was once a Halfway House, a mere victualling outpost at the bottom of Africa is now heralded as a mecca in one of the most beautiful cities on earth. The V&A Waterfront holds a range of historical, cultural and maritime landmarks along its working harbour’s edge, nestling in the shadow of Table Mountain. Since the regeneration of Cape Town harbour, the city has reclaimed its connection with the sea, rekindling its genesis. It is just the focus of resources that has changed.
DATE: 10/04/2010 ~ 20/04/2010
DURATION: 11 Days, 10 Nights
PRICE: 51,500 ZAR ~ S/Sup 4,350 ZAR
Tour 2
DATE: 13/11/2010 ~ 23/11/2010
DURATION: 11 Days, 10 Nights
PRICE: 51,400 ZAR ~ S/Sup 6,200 ZAR
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