The Radio Vagabond

As a full-time solo traveller, it's always great to have visitors, especially from your kids.

You might remember that my youngest daughter travelled with me for four months at the beginning of my journey to Asia. She met me in Bangkok, and then we were in Chiang Mai, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hongkong, China, North Korea, South Korea. And when we got to Japan, my oldest daughter joined us, and we had two weeks together there – during cherry blossom season.

Since then, I've only seen them when I've been back in Denmark.

When I knew I was going to be in Cape Town, they decided to be spontaneous and book a flight to visit me. And I can't be happier.

I've planned to show them why I love this place, and I'm going to be the best tour guide I can be, and below you can find my personal Top 10 Things to See in a Week in Cape Town.

The first thing on the list is a must-see when you're in Cape Town. Like San Francisco has Alcatraz, Cape Town has Robben Island. An island close to the city where there used to be a prison.

When you visit Robben Island, you start with a 40-minute boat ride from V&A Waterfront.

One of the prisoners was behind bars here for 18 years, was a political activist named Nelson Mandela. The South African also call him Madiba – and our guide, who's also an ex-prisoner, calls him Father Mandela.

In total Father Mandela served 27 years in prison until he was released in 1990.

After the fall of apartheid, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 together with the former president, Frederik Willem de Klerk, and one year later this former prisoner of Robben Island was elected President of South Africa.

The guide takes us for a walk around the prison and tells stories of what it was like being there. And then we get into the corridor with the cells in B-Block. One of them being the cell of prisoner #466/64

A 2 x 2-meter cell with a thin mattress on the concrete floor as a bed and a bucket for a toilet. They were allowed one visitor a year for half an hour, and one censured letter every six months of no more than 500 words.

Outside is a courtyard where Mandela and fellow prisoners would eat breakfast, exercise and worked long days in the yard hammering rocks.

Editing this episode, we're in the middle of the Corona Pandemic, and I'm alone in an apartment in Cape Town during the lockdown. We're not allowed to go for a walk unless it's to a supermarket or the pharmacy. We're to stay at home.

When I think of the 18 years, Mandela spent in this tiny cell on Robben Island, and we really shouldn't complain. We have Netflix, YouTube, WIFI… and TikTok. We have music, radio and podcasts. We can talk to our friends via video calls – and we do that all the time.

Mandela was just alone with his thoughts. And still, he later said that he came out of prison a better man. Thar being alone with your thoughts give him a "wonderful opportunity" to think.

What a remarkable man. He said this not that long after he was released from 27 years in prison most of this in a small cell with a matt as a mattress and a bucket as a toilet… and a light bulb shining in his head 24 hours a day.

Let that sink in.

And then maybe give this a thought: Can we use this difficult time with social distancing as a … "wonderful opportunity" to sit alone and think.

Then we went on a bus ride around the island and passed a bleak limestone quarry. It was here Nelson Mandela, and his inmates worked virtually every day for 13 years, digging up rocks, some of which paved the road we were driving on.

The sun was so relentless, the white limestone quarry so bright and dusty, that Mandela got "snow blindness" – something that damaged his eyes.

Our guide also tells us how Mandela and other heroes of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement used their time in this quarry to teach each other literature, philosophy, political theory, and much more.

In 1997, three years after apartheid fell, the prison was turned into the Robben Island Museum.

Robben Island is a must-see for any visitor to South Africa. Tours leave Cape Town four times a day, and even though I've been here before I'm glad I went back and shared the experience with my daughters.

We're at the foot of Signal Hill, at the edge the city centre; and we're about to go on a tour in what used to be known as the Malay Quarter. We're going to Bo-Kaap, one of Cape Town's most distinct neighbourhoods.

The neighbourhoods date back to the 1760s when a number of rental houses were built and leased to slaves. These people were known as Cape Malays, and were brought here from Malaysia, Indonesia and the rest of Africa to work in the Cape. It was one of the first South African settlements of freed slaves and Muslim immigrants.

Now all the houses are really colourful. But that was not always the case. It's said to be partly because of the fact that while the slaves lived here on lease, all the houses had to be white.

When this rule was finally lifted, and the slaves were allowed to buy the properties, they began painting the houses in bright colours as an expression of their freedom.

Our guide said that it was a doctor that started this trend – to make it easier for people to find his house.

"Most of the houses were pretty identical, and the people really struggled to find his place. So, the doctor thought that he would paint his house red with white stripes. And then the tailor that that this was a brilliant idea, and so did the cook. So they initially started to paint their houses to suit the colours of choice."

Today the tailors still use the colours orange and pink, and the cooks still use the colour purple.

Bo-Kaap is as vibrant as it's culturally rich. This historic quarter is a dynamic melting pot with cultural attractions… traditional restaurants, craft markets, museums, a mosque and churches. A visit to Bo-Kaap provides a look back in time, as well as a window into the neighbourhood's modern culture.

You can sample the local cuisine on a food tour, visit the Bo-Kaap Museum in the quarter's oldest building, or do like we did get personal insights from a local on a guided walking tour.

We used Free Walking Tours Cape Town.

And then it's great for Instagram. Especially if you bring two beautiful models as I did.

Next on my tour guiding days with my visiting daughters was a trip to the township Langa. It's the oldest black township in South Africa and is also the closest to Cape Town.

Now it's a safe and friendly tourist destination, and a highly unique experience, totally different from any other experience in Cape Town.

We were introduced to the vibrant township community and the bustling Langa Arts Quarter.

When we arrive in Langa, we set out on foot to explore this wonderful community. Being on foot is a more real and immersive experience than driving from one location to another. It gives you an opportunity to interact with the people as they go about their daily lives.

After a visit to a arts and craft workshop, we went to the Langa Heritage Museum to learn about Cape Town's oldest township. It's also called the Dompas Museum.

"Dompas" quite literally means dumb pass – or "stupid pass". During apartheid, all black people were required to carry passbooks when they were outside the township. If they didn't carry their Dompas they would get a fine, get arrested, or deported.

The atmosphere in the museum is a mixture of abuse, sadness, defiance and triumph.

On the 21 March 1960, 50,000 people burnt their dompas' to protest the apartheid pass laws.

In Sharpeville near Johannesburg, 5-10,000 black South Africans gathered unarmed at the police station without their passbooks. They wanted to state their case by getting arrested.

But instead, police opened fire – shooting protesters in the back as they were running away. In two minutes, police fired more than 1300 bullets. They killed 69 people including eight women and ten children and wounded 180 in a hail of submachine-gun fire.

Since 1994, 21 March has been commemorated as Human Rights Day in South Africa, and Sharpeville was the site selected by President Nelson Mandela for the signing of the Constitution of South Africa on 10 December 1996.

After the visit to the Dompas Museum, we went for a walk in Langa to visit a home and experience a variety of lifestyles. On the way there we met a group of young boys in school uniforms.

The children in Langa are very open to visitors as children are in most places in the world. These wonderful kids that took an interest in my youngest daughter, Clara and her camera. And she took a lot of pictures of them making funny faces.

I highly recommend that you go on a township tour when you're in Cape Town. It's a different experience to visiting the spectacular beauty of Cape Town. Here the beauty is not in the mountains, the scenery or the plants. Here the beauty is in the people.

You will meet up with people who have struggled and overcome. As you know, South Africa has been extremely segregated for decades during apartheid. And still, they have some of the greatest separations between the rich and the poor anywhere in the world.

By understanding the struggles of the past, seeing how people make the most of difficult situations, and talking with the people face-to-face, you will leave with a whole new feel of South Africa. And that's why we went, and I'm glad I also chose to share this experience with my daughters.

Here is the complete list of things to see if you only have a week in Cape Town – like my daughters.

This was what made it into my list. But there is more, I could recommend. You should make time to simply hang out in the city bowl, go to the market on Green Market Square, enjoy the ocean at Sea Point and spend some time in V&A Waterfront.

Also, you should check what is playing at the Artscape Theatre Centre. They always have something interesting on. On my visits to Cape Town, I've seen everything from stand-up comedy, youth plays, big productions like ballet and musicals. I've seen both Swan Lake, Dirty Dancing, and West Side Story. The tickets are very inexpensive compared to western prices.