"Cape Town - Moederstad" a Cape Town Travel Page by Airpunk

Let’s face it: If you haven’t been to Cape Town, you have missed one of the world’s most popular cities. It’s one of the places where you can spend weeks and months and it never gets boring. But here, there’s also one big difference between Cape Town and other world class cities: The main attractions are outside of the town, in the surrounding nature: A beautiful landscape and many places where whales, seals and peguins can be observed. Tropical gardens and wine goods are found everywhere around Cape Town. But even the city on its own is worth a visit. Perhaps there’s only one thing giving Cape Town a bad taste. It’s the most european place and so probably also the less authentic in South Africa.

As one of the oldest european settlement in the southern hemisphere, Cape Town is full of history. Unfortunately, this also includes some dark chapters like the colonization and – in younger history – the apartheid era. In 1652, it was founded by Jan van Riebeeck, an officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC – Vereenigde Oostidische Compagnie). So, it became South Africa’s first city and earned the inofficial title “Mother City”, which is still used today. Robben Island, a place later infoamous for its prison, had an essential role in the founding of the city. The seals (robben means seals in dutch) provided the first settlers with meat.
The Netherlands, after being occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, were forced to give up their cape colonies and so Cape Town fell under British power. Although the Dutch managed to get it back, the British captured the city again in 1806. When Apartheid started in the first half of the 20th century, als Cape Town felt its influences. The city was already famous for its international society, with people from all over the British Empire and beyond emigrating to the most southwestern point of the african continent. This was destroyed, especially with hard measures such as the demolition of District Six and the resettlement of the black population into the townships. Fortunately, Apartheid came to an end in 1994, but its marks are still seen in South African society. Today, Cape Town has around 3,5 million inhabitans, making it South Africa’s largest city and one of the largest on the whole continent.