Ja, ja, Cape Town is another country, we all know this, but our dilapidated currency considered, it might be the only country wannabe Eastern Cape travellers can afford to go to this December.
And believe it or not there are actually ways to do this on a limited budget. Museum trawling, for instance. Sounds spectacularly boring, right? Wrong! Particularly since two new amazing museums have opened in the Mother City in the last six months and there are a gazillion others catering for range of interests – all the way from slavery to intergallactic trekking to perfumery to maritime adventures to art. First and, especially if you have kids, is a trip into the middle of the universe.
This you can do at the newly revamped planetarium and digital dome which is part of the Iziko Museums complex.
After making a walloping investment in cutting-edge technology, the planetarium launched its 4D digital extravaganza in the middle of this year. As a result, from the comfort of a reclining chair, you can travel through Saturn’s rings, skim past the Hubble Telescope and race to the outer reaches of the universe.
What better way for your children to learn than through a thrilling and all-engrossing experience.
The museum is open daily from 10am to 5pm. Tickets for adults are R60 and R30 for school kids. Planetarium entry also includes access to Iziko South African Museum, which houses more than one and a half million specimens of scientific importance, including fossils almost 700 million years old.
For more info on the planetarium or any of the other museums that fall under the umbrella of the Iziko Museums complex go to www.iziko.org.za.
For lovers of art, architecture and all things African, there’s no way you can go anywhere near Cape Town without visiting the new Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Mocaa). Even if it’s just to stand outside and look at the revamped grain silo in the V&A Waterfront. But you do really want to go through the doors that first opened barely a month ago.
On the inside you’ll have a Gaudi-comes-to-Africa experience thanks to “starchitect” Thomas Heatherwick’s remarkable conversion of a grain silo into the largest museum in the world dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its Diaspora.
But it’s not only the architecture that’s extraordinary. Inside the 80 cube-like gallery spaces clustered around the museum’s central atrium are works of really big names – local and international. Included presently are the Mthatha-born Athi-Patra Ruga, sculptor Mary Sibande, in the atrium is Nicholas Hlobo’s spectacular iimpundulu zonke ziyandilenda, the lightning bird of Xhosa mythology, and from the Diaspora is the world- famous installation Ten Thousand Waves by award-winning British installation artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien. The Zeitz’s art collection, built up since 2008 with the aid of chief curator Mark Coetzee, is the permanent backbone to a museum that is being compared to the world’s top modern art museums – the Moma in New York, the Tate in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Says Coetzee: “Zeitz Mocaa will strive to share work from Africa with the world but also bring the world to Africa.” One important tip for your visit is to give your enough time – more than 100 galleries are spread over nine floors. Another is to investigate what’s available for free and when. The magic of the Zeitz Mocaa is that it’s not out of the reach of an empty Eastern Cape pocket. Even if you don’t have a cent to your name but can call this continent home, there are certain times that you can get in for free.
The museum’s “Access for All” policy means there’s no charge for citizens of African nations on Wednesdays from 10am-1pm, or on Museum Nights from 5pm–10pm. And entry is half-price on the first Friday of every month from 4pm-9pm. For the under-18s entry is always free. For more info on times, prices and new exhibitions check out zeitz mocaa.museum.
Finally, there’s one last venue that caused my museum-deprived jaw to drop when I googled “museums in Cape Town” – a perfume museum where you can make your own perfume and possibly discover that the scent you’re wearing today may not be your best choice.
And the Kumanov Perfumery in Table View, is by the way, the only perfume museum in the whole of Africa and one with a five-star rating on TripAdvisor.
Granted, it’s not the sort of place you’d visit with small children, but this is not a females-only outing. Founders and perfume specialists Daniela and Dimo Kumanov also create fragrances for men. You will however, need to book in advance. For more info check out www.kumanovperfumery.com.
Museum trekking may not be a big part of our culture, but looking and learning is a basic part of travel elsewhere – and it’s almost invariably money well spent.
Set your sights on museum trekking
And believe it or not there are actually ways to do this on a limited budget. Museum trawling, for instance. Sounds spectacularly boring, right? Wrong! Particularly since two new amazing museums have opened in the Mother City in the last six months and there are a gazillion others catering for range of interests – all the way from slavery to intergallactic trekking to perfumery to maritime adventures to art. First and, especially if you have kids, is a trip into the middle of the universe.
This you can do at the newly revamped planetarium and digital dome which is part of the Iziko Museums complex.
After making a walloping investment in cutting-edge technology, the planetarium launched its 4D digital extravaganza in the middle of this year. As a result, from the comfort of a reclining chair, you can travel through Saturn’s rings, skim past the Hubble Telescope and race to the outer reaches of the universe.
What better way for your children to learn than through a thrilling and all-engrossing experience.
The museum is open daily from 10am to 5pm. Tickets for adults are R60 and R30 for school kids. Planetarium entry also includes access to Iziko South African Museum, which houses more than one and a half million specimens of scientific importance, including fossils almost 700 million years old.
For more info on the planetarium or any of the other museums that fall under the umbrella of the Iziko Museums complex go to www.iziko.org.za.
For lovers of art, architecture and all things African, there’s no way you can go anywhere near Cape Town without visiting the new Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Mocaa). Even if it’s just to stand outside and look at the revamped grain silo in the V&A Waterfront. But you do really want to go through the doors that first opened barely a month ago.
On the inside you’ll have a Gaudi-comes-to-Africa experience thanks to “starchitect” Thomas Heatherwick’s remarkable conversion of a grain silo into the largest museum in the world dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its Diaspora.
But it’s not only the architecture that’s extraordinary. Inside the 80 cube-like gallery spaces clustered around the museum’s central atrium are works of really big names – local and international. Included presently are the Mthatha-born Athi-Patra Ruga, sculptor Mary Sibande, in the atrium is Nicholas Hlobo’s spectacular iimpundulu zonke ziyandilenda, the lightning bird of Xhosa mythology, and from the Diaspora is the world- famous installation Ten Thousand Waves by award-winning British installation artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien. The Zeitz’s art collection, built up since 2008 with the aid of chief curator Mark Coetzee, is the permanent backbone to a museum that is being compared to the world’s top modern art museums – the Moma in New York, the Tate in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Says Coetzee: “Zeitz Mocaa will strive to share work from Africa with the world but also bring the world to Africa.” One important tip for your visit is to give your enough time – more than 100 galleries are spread over nine floors. Another is to investigate what’s available for free and when. The magic of the Zeitz Mocaa is that it’s not out of the reach of an empty Eastern Cape pocket. Even if you don’t have a cent to your name but can call this continent home, there are certain times that you can get in for free.
The museum’s “Access for All” policy means there’s no charge for citizens of African nations on Wednesdays from 10am-1pm, or on Museum Nights from 5pm–10pm. And entry is half-price on the first Friday of every month from 4pm-9pm. For the under-18s entry is always free. For more info on times, prices and new exhibitions check out zeitz mocaa.museum.
Finally, there’s one last venue that caused my museum-deprived jaw to drop when I googled “museums in Cape Town” – a perfume museum where you can make your own perfume and possibly discover that the scent you’re wearing today may not be your best choice.
And the Kumanov Perfumery in Table View, is by the way, the only perfume museum in the whole of Africa and one with a five-star rating on TripAdvisor.
Granted, it’s not the sort of place you’d visit with small children, but this is not a females-only outing. Founders and perfume specialists Daniela and Dimo Kumanov also create fragrances for men. You will however, need to book in advance. For more info check out www.kumanovperfumery.com.
Museum trekking may not be a big part of our culture, but looking and learning is a basic part of travel elsewhere – and it’s almost invariably money well spent.
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