Golde Acre - Cape Town

When you are on your Cape Town Tour, be sure to vis the Golden Acre. The Golden Acre is a cosmopolitan complex of department stores, specialty shops, restaurants and coffee houses, cinemas and offices, all forming part of an even larger concourse that runs beneath Adderley Street and adjacent thoroughfares. Among points I inked by the bustling and largely subterranean passages are the railway station, the bus and air terminals, the sky-scraping Cape Sun Inter-Continental Hotel, two parking garages and a pedestrian mall connected to the old General Post Office building, now a busy indoor market. Along the fringe of the Golden Acre are Cape Town's famed and philosophical flower-sellers. The Golden Acre is close to the site of the primitive, leaky-walled fort built in the early 1650s by the first Dutch settlers, though nothing remains of the structure. A small reservoir, or dam, dating back to the commandership of Jan van Riebeeck's successor, Zacharias Wagenaer, was uncovered during building excavations for the Golden Acre, and the thoughtful architects redrew their plans to retain the relics in situ. They're now attractively displayed behind glass.