Second hand

Tommy's wonderful and exciting second hand bookshop in Long Street has been around for quite a long time. It was definitely there when I worked in the SA Museum in the eighties.

Windows into history

A window into the Noor el Hamedia Mosque, on the corner of Dorp and Long Streets in Cape Town. The mosque was built in the 1880s in memory of Abu Bakr Effendi, a Turkish Islamic scholar, who was one of the first people who wrote down Afrikaans, phonetically in Arabic script; thus providing a unique chance to work out how it must have sounded in mid-nineteenth century Cape Town.

Rules are not there to be obeyed

Capetonians are not renowned for their compliant behaviour!

Scene in Long Street

An elephant trying to cross the road in Cape Town's trendy Long Street. I wonder if he is also offered the odd joint?

Parlez-vous?

The Alliance Francais in Long Street is quite an institution in Cape Town, and you don't have to be French to pop in for lunch, or even better, early supper. On Fridays they have a food market which is open from 10 am till about 3 or 4 pm. The Brie there is as smelly and delicious as any you can buy in Paris.

Birds and beez

This is Chez Ntemba one of the clubs just off Long Street, the centre of Cape Town's vibrant night life. Long Street has had some bad press lately because of flagrant and persistent drug dealing - something that our police seem unable to stop. This club must have drawn inspiration from Helen Martins of the Owl House fame as well as from Beezy Bailey.

Shades of grey

Today is stormy - a bit of brilliant sun, then a dash of chilly rain. Long Street was looking grey, but a dip into this shop in Long Street - Imagenius - was enough to chase the greys away. Even their website is fun to visit.

Come to the Carnival!

This fabulously frothy Victorian building in Long Street is a backpackers called Carnival Court, which, its website declares, is rated as one of the top 20 party hostels in the world! Designed in 1901 by George Ransome, an English architect, as luxury apartments for the well-to-do, it still stops one in one's tracks, especially when the sky behind is stormy and dark as it was today.

Shaken and stirred

Walking along Long Street one is not really aware of the handsome church in the trees behind the railings ...

but a closer look reveals the Gothic Revival-style Lutheran church of St Martini (Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische St Martini Kirchengemeinde Kapstadt) complete with pentagonal Gothic balcony with filigree pinnacles. It was designed by Peter Penketh and built by him between 1851 and 1854.

One more view of it from the intersection of Long, Buitensingel, Kloof and Orange Streets showing the octagonal spire.

Recently this church was the setting for the opening of Deon Meyer's (the king of South African crime thriller writers) latest book Thirteen hours, where the body of a young American tourist is discovered - setting the scene for a real roller-coaster thriller ride of a book.

Information from Walking Long Street Cape Town by Desmond Martin (Struik).

Red, white and cool

Scott House on the corner of Long and Church Streets used to be the old Johannesburg Hotel - one of the many Lion Hotels of the mid twentieth century. It was probably built in the 1880s, and now houses the oh-so-cool and trendy Mungo and Jemima fashion store.

Scene in Long Street

Ah well, in the absence of any wildlife, I had better shoot Beares.

A fierce hunger

Even fierce Cameroonian lions have a weakness for Kentucky Chicken! This handsome chap and the rest of his pride live on Cape Town's trendy Long Street.
PS. This photo was taken quite early in the morning, hence the empty street. Usually Long Street is packed.

Sing for your coffee

This life-size plaster figure on the balcony of the Pan African Market caught my eye. He is confidently, but silently singing to the pedestrians below, and another wooden colonial-style figure is bringing him some coffee on a tray.
The building once housed the YWCA - the Young Women's Christian Association. Designed by architect John Parker, it was built in 1903 and contains a plaster commemorative panel that reads "In memory of Minnie & Maria Bam, founded 1886, rebuilt 1903." The teenage Bam sisters died in 1886, shortly after arriving in Cape Town from Germany, and their father established the original building as a YWCA in their memory. (His original house was demolished and this one built in 1903).
The Pan African Market is well worth a visit, and the having coffee on the balcony is an experience I am looking forward to trying. I hope you don't have to bargain for it, because that is not in my genes!

Walking through history 2

At the top of Cape Town's trendy Long Street is the famous Long Street Baths with its attractive Art Nouveau facade. They opened their doors on 4 November 1908 and are still open today. There is a swimming pool and some Turkish baths inside, but I am ashamed to say I have never been inside. There is a lovely new book out by Desmond Martin called Walking Long Street, which is well worth buying if you want to get the most of a walking tour down this historic, vibey street.
For more worlds, see My World Tuesday.