2 Best Sights in Cape Town, South Africa

Originally named Heerengracht after a canal that once ran the length of the avenue, this street has always been Cape Town's principal thoroughfare. There are a couple of historical buildings dating to the early 1900s including the Adderley Street Flower Market (one of the city's oldest markets, located in Trafalgar Place between Strand and Darling streets), but it's evolved into a heavily congested and primarily commercial stretch full of office blocks, large franchise stores, regular traffic chaos, and the vast concourse of the city's main railway terminal. What sidewalks exist are packed with street vendors selling everything from fruits and vegetables to cell phone covers and tea towels, serving people going to and from work. Stay on your toes and keep valuables safe and it can be a place to feel the bustling pulse of everyday Cape Town. 

The section of Long between Orange and Strand Streets is lined with magnificently restored Georgian and Victorian buildings that you might miss unless you look up and pay attention (while also keeping your wits about you and your valuables safely stowed). Wrought-iron balconies and fancy curlicues on many of these colorful houses evoke the French Quarter in New Orleans. Today, it's a veritable hodgepodge of antiques dealers, backpackers' lodges, curio shops selling warehouse quantities of African crafts, bohemian clothing outlets, and a plethora of cafés, bars, restaurants, and cannabis "social clubs." All of which makes this a ceaselessly fascinating street to explore while the sun is shining; by night, it can live up to some of its older reputation—a place for debauchery and considerable seediness, so do watch out! At the mountain end is the Long Street Baths where there's an indoor swimming pool and an old Turkish hammam (steam bath). This end of the street is also a pocket of much questionable after-dark hedonism––you'd do well not to accept offers to buy "things" from the many random strangers who will approach you.