Castle Of Good Hope is an often neglected spot by many tourists. Hence, I was only able to visit this place after 15 months of living in South Africa and that was because our previous plans to go somewhere else got cancelled.
Castle Of Good Hope has actually a significant place in the history of the first European settlers and is the oldest existing colonial building in South Africa. When it was first built by the trading organization of Dutch East India Company, it was actually located on the coastline. Now, it's located inland after the land reclamation.
This was a time period that tension between Netherlands and Britain was continuously rising. That's why a pentagonal fortress was built between 1666 and 1679 to serve as a messenger for approaching threats. The canon balls fired on top the fortress would alert and notify the canons on the surrounding hills sequentially like a domino effect.
Besides defense purposes, the fortress started to be used as a residential area that included a church, bakery, workshops, living quarters and many more. During the Second Boer War between British and Dutch forces, the fortress was used as a prison after British occupation. Source
One section of the fortress was allocated for an exhibition by William Fehr who was a businessman making a collection of paintings in the early 20th century. The paintings mostly depicted the settling of Dutch and British colonists. Something interesting I realized about the paintings was the exaggerated illustration of Table Mountain but I didn't really understand the reasoning behind it.
Another exhibition in the fortress was about the international relationship between Australia and South Africa, mainly the boycott policy of Australia towards South Africa during the Apartheid years. It seemed that many Austrailian sportsmen refused to get involved in any sports games with South Africa, which attracted mixed reactions from authorities.
There was also a Military Museum which was very explanatory about the military tactics of Dutch East India Company and the wars occuring with the arrival of British forces.
This was an exhibition about the ceramics, but I was already fed up with history information to be honest, so I didn't look at it in much detail. The art work here was extraordinary, though.
The views on top of the fortress walls were stunning.
Have you been to this castle before? Drop me a comment below.
Cheers;
Haritakurdu
The trading post, a lot of history attached to this grand building which replaced the earlier one. Thanks @haritakurdu visiting from #teamsouthafrica
Looks like a cool castle for sure!
Congratulations! Your high-quality travel content was selected by @travelfeed curator @jpphotography and earned you a partial upvote. We love your hard work and hope to encourage you to continue to publish strong travel-related content.
Thank you for being part of the TravelFeed community!
Learn more about our travel project on Steemit by clicking on the banner above and join our community on Discord.
Great views from the walls! Looks like it almost in the city now. I've visited a view forts on the East Coast of the US and in the Caribbean. Nothing this big I don't think.
Man I havent been there for 20 years! This brought back such good memories.
What is the price to go in these days?
Interesting, I wonder how Cape Town was like 20 year ago. The entrance was 50 Rands, for 25 for students.
It was beautiful...even more so than now.
Thank you
Thank you for sharing this @haritakurdu, I went there many many years ago as a teen, on my list of to-do's next time I go to Cape Town. Problem is there's so much to see in CT, find the history fascinating!
Hello @haritakurdu, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
That's a pretty castle and with the backdrop of Table Mountain, it does look quite spectacular. Glad you got to visit and thanks for sharing the interesting history behind it :)