Antiquary Antics - A Free Heritage Walk Through The Oldest Shops In the City Bowl

We're back for October's edition of Inner City Saturdays with a new City Bowl Tour I've daydreamed of doing ever since I started dawdling and dilly-dallying for a living!

I moved to within rambling distance of the CBD just when Covid had finished rampaging through the high streets, wiping out with it a few of the most iconic bricks-and-mortar institutions of Long Street, Adderley and all their associated lanes.

For a while I despaired like so many that the old human-sized Cape Town was gone forever and could never quite spring back from the ashes, but the more I've marched up and down and round about the old grid, the more grateful I've become for the handful of hardy surviving SME's that have weathered everything thrown at them and now make up the foundations for a full-on revival movement spearheaded by the Mission for the Inner City.

So this Saturday morning, with the Mission's blessing, I want to invite you on a free adventure through the original Kaapstad to discover the gold of the old and the hue of the new between Rocksole Shoe and Bag Repair in the Bo-Kaap and Mabu Vinyl at the top of Long Street, and checking in at Yogi's Barbers, Ashbey's Gallery, R.G. Jack's Electrical, Sloppy Sam's, Philip Zetler Jewellers, Southern Watch Repair, Markham's, the Adderley Flower Sellers, Shap's Cameraland, Muller's Optometrists, Clarke's Bookshop and many more besides!

If you think you know the City Bowl, you're only just beginning!

Join us and pledge allegiance to our Rainbow Nation of shopkeepers!

P.S. If you've read this far I'm guessing you'll want even more of the specs, so here goes:

- We start at Rocksole at 10h00 and end at Mabu Vinyl around 12h30 (with optional drinks after at Pauline's Cafe), so either walk back down Bree, use a two-car system with friends or catch a MyCiTi down Loop Street at the end.

- This is a free tour sponsored, promoted and supported by the Mission for the Inner City for the purpose of bringing appreciation, security and homeliness back to the City Bowl so if you want to do anything to help our shared cause, please take and share photos or reviews of the tour and/or Donate to Streetscapes, Women for Change, Straatwerk or any other of the NGO's allied with the city.

- Book via Quicket, WhatsApp us on 076 033 8164, E-mail us on [email protected] or Message us via the buttons on our home page to secure your place.

- This is a consistently well-reviewed heritage-focused walking tour; which is to say that all you'll need to enjoy yourself is curiosity about Cape Town's past (and History in general) and enough stamina to walk just less than 2 km in one afternoon (with stops and snacks).

- Please bring water, sun-cream, good walking shoes and a child-like whimsy.

- If you're rejoining us, please please please please please please consider dropping us a short (or extensive) review on our Facebook Reviews or Google Reviews section as it will help spread our gospel of curiosity and playful appreciation across the internet and across the spectrum of all potential visitors to the Cape. It helps us more than you can believe!

- Feel absolutely free to spread the word, invite friends who've been looking for this kind of experience and badger us with every imaginable heritage query. We live for it!

Can't wait to meet ya, really!

Yours,

Cameron