7/14/2015 - Exploring Cape Town

We tried out a local cafe just in front of our restaurant, Cocoa Express, for breakfast and found it delightful and inexpensive.  

We walked to the conference center, most definitely a 5 minute walk away, to register and check it out.  We all did so before breakfast and then put away our conference bags before heading out to see the Cape of Good Hope castle.  It had a small art museum, lots of history about the castle and colonialism in the area, a military history museum, and an excellent view of table mountain from the top.  

  
  
  

   

We took a coffee break and continued meandering through the city in search of the African Gem store.  We walked through a beautiful garden in the middle of the city that had many varieties of trees from all around the world in it.  It was clearly a popular park with locals who even came to its benches to share their lunch with the pigeons.  The other end of the park led directly to the South Africa Natural History Museum and Planetarium, a place we mentally bookmarked for later before continuing on our trek.  

We reached the gem store late in the afternoon, and graciously accepted the offer of a tour of the facilities.  Afterwards, we looked for cheaper jewelry but we were all so hungry it was hard to make a decision on anything (we skipped lunch) and so we left in search of food in the direction of our hotel.  

We happened upon a neighborhood we liked, much closer to the hotel, and went door to door, looking at menus.  Eventually, we were lured in by a small place that served a set of tapas for two people, a sort of chef's kitchen with a constantly changing static menu.  We had an amazing time and walked happily home on well lit streets after, in time to prepare for the start of the conference tomorrow.