Today we had a day to sightsee in Cape Town on our own before meeting up with our tour this evening. We bought tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus and headed to the Jewish museum. It was a beautiful museum which includes a history of the Jews of South Africa going back to their origins in Europe, and a very sobering Holocaust Museum. There was a display which told about successful South African Jews and there we found Dr. Jack Penn, who was the father of my second cousin’s husband. He was a very well-know plastic surgeon who worked with Albert Schweitzer. At the museum we also watched a film about the life of Nelson Mandela, who dedicated the museum in the year 2000.

From the museum we walked to the beautiful Company’s Garden, a very large park in the center of the city. We take the same picture of Cliff sitting on a park bench everywhere we travel! There is a restaurant in the garden and we ate lunch outdoors on the patio. Our last stop was the Riverfront, a bustling collection of shops and restaurants near our hotel. Here are some pictures from the park and the Riverfront as well a mist-shrouded Table Mountain which rises above the city.

In a couple of hours we will meet the people who we will tour with for the next twelve days. We’re looking forward to making new friends and meeting our guide!