INTERNATIONAL

Cape Town, South Africa, welcomes travelers with a captivating medley of living history, native culture, and thought-provoking art. During a visit, walk in the footsteps of anti-apartheid leaders, survey the coastline from the top of a former grain silo, and be immersed in African traditions.

WRITER AUSTIN CANNON

Robben Island Museum

Centuries of sobering history await at Robben Island Museum, just a short ferry ride from Cape Town’s V & A Waterfront. The 5-square-mile island served as the destination for a variety of unwanted people, a troubled story you can trace during the island’s immersive tour experience. You’ll witness what remains of the island’s leprosy colony, including a cemetery for those who succumbed to the disease from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. You’ll also see the house where Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the Pan Africanist Congress, was held in solitary confinement. His dedication to return South Africa’s governance to its Indigenous people led to his imprisonment on the island for six years in the 1960s. The same decade, Nelson Mandela also arrived and began his 18-year incarceration on the island. When he and thousands of other anti-apartheid activists weren’t being forced to work in the limestone quarry, they were locked in the island’s maximum security prison. The tour concludes at Mandela’s cell, which he revisited years later as South Africa’s president.

Castle of Good Hope

In the 17th century, rock mined on Robben Island was installed as the paving for the Castle of Good Hope. The pentagon-shaped compound, the oldest colonial structure in South Africa, has lived many lives over more than 300 years, operating as a fort, slave port, and a seat of government. Visitors who cross the castle’s moat and enter its bastions will find exhibits that explore the castle’s marginalized histories. With a collection of artwork and artifacts amassed over 25 years, The Cape Heritage Museum offers insight into the myriad cultures who called the cape home: the Khoikhoi, Xhosa, Malays, and eventually European colonists. Part of the William Fehr Collection also resides in the castle. The decorative artwork and oil paintings depict life under colonial rule, a perspective visitors are encouraged to reflect on as they examine each piece.

Norval Foundation

The floor-to-ceiling windows at Norval Foundation allow natural light to illuminate the contemporary African art inside, including works from South Africans Dumile Feni and Alexis Preller. One of the foundation’s current exhibits, We, the People: 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, explores the country’s post-apartheid history through photographs, prints, and multimedia installations. Outdoors, native plants surround the artwork in the sculpture garden. You can’t miss Holderstebolder, a giant figure of granite, steel, and concrete that sculptor Angus Taylor comically positioned as if he’s tumbling down a hill. The garden borders a scenic natural wetland, home to the endangered western leopard toad. You may even find some of the amphibians in the sculpture garden; the foundation built underground culverts so the toads could travel to the Norval land beneath the roadway.

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa

The architectural design of Zeitz MOCAA, overlooking Cape Town’s waterfront, is as striking as any of the artwork it houses. The atrium inspires awe with its abstract, tubular structures — remnants of the building’s past as a grain silo — and the building’s bulbous windows are segmented into triangles to resemble ancient cathedral ceilings. Consult the museum’s audio tour and comb through hundreds of paintings, garments, and sculptures, pieces of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. Be sure to check out One Must Be Seated, an exhibit by Ghanaian American artist Rita Mawuena Benissan. Using a royal umbrella and stool, it centers on the installment of the Akan people’s sacred chief. When you’ve progressed through the exhibition’s enstoolment ceremony and wandered through the rest of the galleries, step into the sixth floor’s Ocular Lounge for a cocktail and dramatic views of Table Mountain and the harbor.

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