Babylon Stories - A Heritage Walking Tour through the Company's Garden
Schedule
Sun Mar 23 2025 at 02:00 pm to 04:15 pm
UTC+02:00Location
Coffee on Orange | Cape Town, WC
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Were you waiting around to start your Cape Town Heritage Tours adventure from the very first chapter?Well, tarry no more because the time has finally arrived - this Sunday afternoon at 14h00 - to continue on our next triumphant circuit through the psychogeography of this pearl of a peninsula just behind the arch of the beloved Labia Theatre.
On the brink of Summer, we return to the centre of our Town for arguably the best heritage walk of them all! In fact, the walk itself is a piece of heritage, bridging in just 1 km three centuries of pedestrian life at the outermost edge of this continent.
Government Avenue is, for most of us at least, the shady, sleepy shortcut separating the Labia from the lights of the CBD. But if you go through it with a sharp-eyed guide, you'll rediscover it as the very first site of struggle in the West's 'domestication' of Africa.
In fact, there is perhaps no single space in the world in which so many of the contradictions, traumas and romantic ideals of Colonialism exist side-by-side for the sake of our curiosity and critique.
From the rows of Northern Oaks first laid out by Simon van der Stel, to the plague of American squirrels imported wholesale by Cecil Rhodes, to the still-illustrious Cape Dutch temples that signify the South African birth-places of Formal Education, Botany, Painting, Natural Science, Bibliophilia, Warfare and Representative Government itself.
But along with that conservative clout comes a suppressed history of slow-building cosmopolitan citizenship. Along this strip is also the first official synagogue beneath the Sahara, the first monument of friendship with the people of Japan, the first truly global seed-market for exotic flora from every continent, and the site where Nelson Mandela first laughed while shaking P.W. Botha's hand, celebrating a new covenant for a halfway-reconciled nation.
On top of all this, it is simply the road known and loved by the most South Africans throughout our epoch. So let's join their tangible shadows for a loose, casual meander from the top to the bottom and back again, getting to know the heart and stomach of our city all along the way.
Bring your own water, jackets and questions.
Love to you all for reading this far 😉
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 at the Labia and finishing by the entrance to Government Avenue on Orange Street, so happily park in the lot by the Gardens Bowls Club off Wandel Street if you're coming by car.
- We used to be donation-based but to secure our future we're now doing a pre-booking system whereby you can guarantee your tickets beforehand at R120pp, or you can spontaneously join the tour on the day for R150pp in cash or EFT et al. Simply WhatsApp or Message us via the buttons on our home page to secure your place.
- 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!
- We've also introduced 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 🙂
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Where is it happening?
Coffee on Orange, corner of 64 Orange and 2 Rheede street ,Gardens ,Cape Town, Western Cape, South AfricaEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
