Budget · 3-hour walk · Cape Town
The City Bowl in three hours
The botanical garden in the middle of town, the old square, the painted Bo-Kaap streets and the fort.
Cape Town's centre sits in a bowl between Table Mountain and the sea and is far more walkable than its reputation suggests, in daylight. This route stays inside the bowl and climbs once, into Bo-Kaap, whose brightly painted houses are the most photographed streets in South Africa and a real residential neighbourhood.
The route, stop by stop
-
Company's Garden
Planted in 1652 to grow vegetables for passing ships. Now an oak avenue with the national gallery and museum off it.
30 min here Walk here → -
Greenmarket Square
A cobbled square that has been a slave market, a vegetable market and now a craft market since 1696.
20 min here Walk here → -
Bo-Kaap
Painted houses on steep cobbled streets, settled by freed slaves from Malaysia and Indonesia. A living neighbourhood, so ask before photographing doors.
35 min here Walk here → -
Castle of Good Hope
The oldest surviving colonial building in South Africa, finished in 1679. Key ceremony and cannon firing on weekday mornings.
More walks in Cape Town
More in Cape Town
Every walking route in Cape Town, the full Cape Town guide for where to stay and what a day costs, or walks in other cities.