Birkenhead House (Hermanus)
corridors to a zingy bar, popular
with locals. If the bar serves the
Cape’s crispest home-roasted nuts,
then asis Bistro offers at breakfast
multifarious breads of European
standard. I even asked if they had
a French baker.
The Mount Nelson is Cape Town’s
best-located hotel -- I think, at
least, invariably contrary to
everyone else. Most hotels proclaim
mutter ends in the Slavery Lodge.
Where you’re confronted with the
truth in black and white, there’s no
grey area of redemption.
their trendy waterfront or
glamorous sea-facin g placements.
But I enjoy museums and the Mount
Nelson, in Cape Town’s historic
heart, neighbours the gorgeous
Company Gardens, with their wealth
of museums, galleries and historic
buildings, including the Parliament.
The kilometre-long path traversing
these gardens, doused in lush trees
and carpeted with blooming lawns
where birds utter and s uirrels
A few French tourists stay in here,
nobody else does. A restaurantowner had bewailed, “Cape Town’s
so full of coloured people, you’d
think you’re in Asia.” The Slavery
Lodge enlightens that South
frica s horrific slave trade also
34
sourced slaves from India, Ceylon,
Malaysia, Indonesia and China. The
deplored super uity of coloureds
in the Cape are descendants of
“imported” slaves.
There’s a Jewish Museum, about
which hotel staff say, “Wouldn t
interest anyone who isn’t Jewish.”
The Jewish Museum also contains the
devastating Holocaust Museum, and
one would think that the Holocaust