Category Archives: travel

The oldest public garden in South Africa is right here — the Company’s Garden on Government Avenue, directly across from the old Parliament building. How old? Try 1652 old. Try Dutch East India Company old. This place is National Heritage Site old, as you might suspect.

I’ll get to our walk through the Company’s Garden in a moment, but first I’m going to show you an eating establishment located here in case you get hungry. It’s the appropriately named Company’s Garden Restaurant:

Now, I’m not going to diss this place, because in our search for some local cuisine, I’ve a feeling we may have just ordered the wrong thing. We went with the Cape Malay platter, which included two soups, spring rolls, chicken “pies”, djaltjies (heavy, ball-shaped chili bites from from chickpea flour), fish cakes, condiments (sambal, chutney, raita). We found the food bland, heavy, and not to our particular taste. If we had it to do all over again, and I will next year on our return trip to Cape Town, we would order something else off the menu.

Now for the grand Company’s Garden tour, beginning with Cecil John Rhodes, for whom Rhodesia was named:

Behind Cecil Rhodes, hidden by trees and just outside the garden, you may catch a glimpse of this interesting structure at 62 Queen Victoria Street:

Back in the garden, ficus elastica makes an appearance. A member of the fig family, ficus elastica goes by another name — the rubber tree — and the example here is enormous.

There are a lot of memorials within this 373-year-old garden, including one to teetotalers. Behold the memorial to the Temperance Movement:

Before we entered the Company’s Garden, we were advised by a friendly local to be on the lookout for the garden’s most famous resident. He’s cute. He’s small. I’m guessing he’s also caucasian.

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)