museum

The Two Oceans Aquarium is Cape Town's world class aquarium showcasing more than 3000 animals including sharks, turtles, seals, crabs, seahorses and many, many more. The exhibits are informative, well maintained and beautiful. Helpful and enthusiastic volunteers are also normally on hand to answer any questions that you may have.

The Cape Town Planetarium is in a beautiful old building just off Long Street in central Cape Town. It makes for an informative and cheap outing.

The Castle of Good Hope is South Africa's oldest building dating from 1666. Taking 13 years to build the castle replaced a smaller fort which was built by Jan van Riebeeck. The castle contained a curch, bakery, workshops, living quarters, cells, etc and was built because the Netherlands feared a British attack on the Cape.

The famous Noon Gun on Signal Hill has been fired every day (except Sundays and public holidays) since 1902 and has now been fired over 63,000 times! Visitors are welcome to watch the firing of the gun which happens daily at 12:00 sharp.

The SA National Gallery is one of South Africa's premier art museums. It is located in the historic and beautiful company gardens in central Cape Town. The exhibitions change fairly regularly, but visitors can expect to find paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture, beadwork, textiles and architecture. Details about current and upcoming exhibitions are available on the website (see link above).

Robben Island is a former prison and World Heritage Site about 12km from Cape Town which rose to fame as a prison for political prisoners between 1961 and 1991. The most famous Robben Island inmate was Nelson Mandela who spent many of his 27 years of imprisonment there.

In 1965 the Apartheid government deemed the vibrant but non-white community in District Six to be unwanted and forcibly removed 60,000 people to create a 'whites only' area. The District Six museum is dedicated to educating visitors about this historic community and its tragic end.

The Maritime Museum at the Waterfront showcases the maritime history of the Cape in great detail. The museum is home to over 19,000 photographs and the largest collection of model ships in Southern Africa. There are also two floating exhibits which can be boarded for a small fee - a retired Naval vessel and an old coal-fired steam tug.