Tag Archives: photography

December 22, 2025 · 5:35 am

 Cape Town —Finishing Government Ave. and Beginning Our City Sightseeing Tour


View from Company’s Garden

So, you may recall that our first full day in Cape Town involved a wine tour to the Paarl and Stellenbosch regions. Our next day we headed out on foot, first to explore the area around our hotel, then over to Government Avenue and the Company’s Garden. I’ll finish up with this 9 March 2025 foot tour, then show you our first day adventure using our two-day City Sightseeing bus tickets that we started using on 10 March.

Monstera Deliciosa; Company’s Garden, Cape Town, South Africa

Heading back on foot this bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, I managed to snag a few images, such as this silhouetted statue with South Africa’s old Parliament building in the background:

Who is that tall, dark stranger?

Prominent statue on a prominent pedestal in a prominent location with a prominent backdrop. Must be someone prominent, one would assume. And indeed it is. That is a memorial to…

Sir George Grey

… Sir George Grey, KCB. If you find yourself looking in front of the Parliament building for the Statue of Sir George, then I misled you with that photograph. The road behind the iron fencing and before the Parliament building is Government Avenue. That places the statue with the Company’s Garden, so you must seek it there. Let’s continue our trek back to St. George’s Mall and our hotel with this view of Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain:

Cape Town’s Table Mountain

I’ll be showing you a lot of Table Mountain over the next several weeks, so I’ll just gloss over that for now and show you another view of the Anglican St. George’s Cathedral:

St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa

That concludes our foot tour on 9 March. Now it’s time to head over to Long Street near Shortmarket to pick up our reserved two-day pass for City Sightseeing’s Hop On/Hop Off buses. You may remember that one of our favorite things to do while traveling is to get a multi-day pass aboard the local hop-on/hop-off. City Sightseeing is a great company for this; we’ve used them in many locations. City Sightseeing runs two Cape Town routes — Red and Blue — and you can alternate between the two as much as you desire. This is also the company we used for our Paarl-Franschhoek-Stellenbosch wine tour. Here is the City Sightseeing mapr for their red and blue routes:

City Sightseeing Red and Blue Routes

We began with the Blue Route, which took us past Devil’s Peak and the Rhodes Memorial. This route also affords you a great view of Table Mountain in the distance. Here is today’s photo gallery/slide show to whet your appetite:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

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December 19, 2025 · 5:35 am

Fun Photo Friday — Cape Town, South Africa Favorites 3


It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s SCUBA PENGUIN!

Time of Part 3 of Fun Photo Friday featuring Cape Town favorites:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

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December 17, 2025 · 5:35 am

Cape Town — Touring Cape Town on Foot: Company’s Garden and its Most Famous Resident


Government Avenue; Parliament (left), Company’s Garden (right)

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.

Company’s Garden, Government Avenue, Cape Town, South Africa

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:

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.

Cape Malay Platter — a bit bland and far too heavy for our tastes

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

Cecil John Rhodes

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:

62 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town, South Africa

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.

Giant rubber tree

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

Temperance Memorial

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.

Company’s Garden’s most famous resident; an albino squirrel

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

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