City Bowl
The old city under the mountain, and the densest part of Cape Town for walking. Most of its museums, its oldest buildings and its squares sit within twenty minutes of each other on foot.
Guides to this part of the city
What to see
St Stephen’s Church
St Stephen’s Church on Riebeeck Square was built in 1800 as the African Theatre, the first purpose-built theatre in South Africa, at…
Tana Baru Cemetery
Tana Baru is a Muslim burial ground on the eastern slopes of Signal Hill, above the Bo-Kaap. Burials took place here from…
Koopmans-de Wet House
Koopmans-de Wet House at 35 Strand Street is a Cape Town townhouse whose site was first built on in 1699 and which…
Strand Street Lutheran Church
The Strand Street Lutheran Church began in 1774 as a hall in the form of a warehouse, put up by Martin Melck…
Martin Melck House
Martin Melck House at 96 Strand Street was built in the early 1780s as the parsonage of the Lutheran congregation next door,…
Church Square
Church Square is a small paved public square behind Groote Kerk, at the corner of Spin and Parliament Streets in central Cape…
Riebeeck Square
Riebeeck Square is an open block in central Cape Town that was one of the squares the town expanded around during the…
Auwal Mosque
Auwal Mosque on Dorp Street is the oldest mosque in South Africa and remains an active congregation rather than a historic interior…
Walking up from here
Lion’s Head Hike
The spiral walk up Lion’s Head, which SANParks gives as about two kilometres one way and one to one and a half…
Platteklip Gorge
Platteklip Gorge is the most direct and popular walking route to the summit of Table Mountain. A steep, stepped and strenuous climb…
Kloof Corner Hike
Kloof Corner is one of Cape Town's most rewarding short hikes — a steep but quick ascent from Tafelberg Road to a…
India Venster to Upper Cable Station
India Venster climbs the front face of Table Mountain from near the Lower Cable Station and finishes at the top. There are…
Things to do
Cape Malay Cooking Class
You cook, then you eat what you made. A class puts you inside a food tradition the Cape has been cooking for…
Sky-Hi Ride
Sky-Hi Ride is a 35-metre drop ride on the 28th floor of Hotel Sky in central Cape Town. Riders are lifted above…
Tandem Paragliding
Tandem paragliding from Signal Hill or Lion’s Head, chosen on the day for the wind. No experience is needed, the pilot does…
More about this area
Everything else in City Bowl
Riebeeck Square
Riebeeck Square is a large open block in central Cape Town, bounded by Bree, Shortmarket, Church and Buitengracht Streets. Most of it is a surface car park: worn asphalt, faded bay markings, traffic cones and rows of parked cars, with trees along the street edges and Table Mountain filling the view. A cream classical building […]
Tana Baru Cemetery
Tana Baru lies on the eastern slopes of Signal Hill, where the Bo-Kaap street grid runs out and the hillside takes over. It is reached at the top of Longmarket Street, and it is a fenced and gated precinct rather than open ground. The Tana Baru Trust describes it as the first officially recognised Muslim […]
Palm Tree Mosque
Palm Tree Mosque sits on the eastern side of Long Street, a green-painted double-storey building wedged between a brick warehouse and a blue apartment block, with a single tall palm growing out of the pavement in front of it. A small green sign above the door carries its name. Nothing about it announces itself as […]
Auwal Mosque
Auwal Mosque stands on Dorp Street, on the lower slope of Bo-Kaap, in a terrace that gives very little away from the pavement. The frontage is long and low, rendered in a dark grey green, with brown shuttered windows and a small arched doorway set back under a name plaque. A slender minaret with a […]
Church Square
Church Square is a small paved square in the middle of Cape Town’s city centre, set behind Groote Kerk at the corner of Spin and Parliament Streets. There is no gate, no ticket and no building to enter, and the whole space can be crossed in well under a minute. What makes it worth stopping […]
Greenmarket Square
Greenmarket Square sits in the middle of Cape Town’s city centre, a cobbled open space bounded by Longmarket and Shortmarket streets with Burg Street running straight through the middle of it. It is generally described as the city’s second-oldest public square after the Grand Parade, and the ground in front of the Old Town House […]
Groote Kerk
Groote Kerk stands on Adderley Street in the middle of Cape Town’s business district, hemmed in by office blocks and traffic. The front is a broad painted gable with a classical pediment, a row of small pinnacles along the roofline, and tall windows that come to a Gothic point — an unusual combination that makes […]
Cape Town City Hall & Grand Parade
Cape Town City Hall stands on the edge of the Grand Parade, a long Edwardian facade in honey-coloured stone with a clock tower at its centre and Table Mountain filling the sky behind it. It is one of the most photographed buildings in the city and one of the easiest to underestimate, because the open […]
Parliament of South Africa
The Parliament of South Africa occupies a walled precinct of historic buildings at the top of Cape Town’s city centre, between Plein Street and the eastern edge of the Company’s Garden. It is one of the city’s most significant landmarks and also one of its least understood, because most visitors meet it as an imposing […]
Noon Gun
At midday in Cape Town, a cannon goes off. If you are down in the city it arrives as a flat, heavy thump that rolls off the mountain and sets a few car alarms going, and half the people around you glance at their watches without breaking stride. The gun doing it sits at the […]