Cape Town

5 JUNE 2023

It's a wet and cold Sunday and I've visited all the sights in Cape Town that I wanted to. It is by chance then, that I make my way to the Jewish Museum today.

The Jewish Museum

The security is tight and I have to go through a full check before entering the museum compound. From here I entered the museum area and paid the R200 entry fee. This leads into a quite remarkable area of information, presented in a very accessible and fascinating way. The area begins with a walk through the old synagogue and past the old museum displays. Then you pass along a bridge to the new museum area, a transition used to depict what it was like for the early Jewish settlers as the sailed from Europe to Cape Town in the 1800s. The new museum is brilliant; like many of the museums I've visited in Cape Town, it is full of first hand testimonials and realistic reconstructions of life of people living in the past and present. Jewish migrants started arriving in Cape Town in the early 1800s from England and Germany, then later Eastern Europe via England and after the WW2 from the European concentration camps. In Cape Town, the arrivals often had very little, working hard to make a living in the town. When words spread about the diamond finds in the north, many moved to Kimberley to try their luck. There is now a strong community of ancestors from these settlers, living in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

I was surprised to find that the Museum also housed one of the largest collections of Japanese netsuke. Collected by Isaac Kaplan in the 1950s and 60s, this collection of 200 items are the selected few from a whole of 600. Kaplan collected the pieces from sellers in London and taught himself to read Japanese in order to know more about their origin and makers.

Camp Bay / Hout Bay

I spent my last day in South Africa and on this trip, taking local transport to Camp Bay and then walking along the coast before taking transport back from Hout Bay to Cape Town. Walking along this coast line which is still undeveloped in sections was a great way to get out of the city and into the fresh air. At Hout Bay, I visited the Fisherman's market from which you could see the sprawling town ship on the hillside beyond. This area felt much closer to the Africa I have got used to; very different mix of people and energy to the one I experience in Cape Town.

Last evening

I met Ross, a young traveller, for dinner this evening. We tried the commended Seabreeze's restaurant and sampled their excellent muscle chowder, hake and deserts. A celebratory end of an epic journey and months of travel.