A yellow Victorian building with iron lacework and a balcony over Long Street

Jim.henderson / CC BY-SA 4.0

Where to stay in City Centre & Bo-Kaap

The CBD on the flat, and Bo-Kaap climbing Signal Hill above it: the Company's Garden and the museums, Greenmarket Square, the Long and Bree Street strips, and the painted houses and mosques of the oldest surviving residential quarter in the country. It is the one part of Cape Town built to be walked, and the only one with a public link to the airport. It also empties — the CBD is an office district first, and after about seven on a weekday the streets that were crowded at lunchtime are not. Bo-Kaap is a living neighbourhood and not an exhibit: the houses are people's homes and the mosques are in use.

Price level · Mid-range

Cape Town

Area scorecard

Scored 0–10 by Where Stay Guide. No overall total: every traveller weights these differently.

Sightseeing: 8.5
Walkability: 9.0
Transport: 7.5
Food: 8.5
Nightlife: 8.5
Quietness: 4.5
Families: 5.5
Value: 8.0
Airport / station: 8.5
First trip: 8.0

Best for

A first trip built around the museums and the city itself
Travellers without a car
Arriving or leaving by air on the MyCiTi bus

Choose elsewhere if

You want the sea
You want a quiet Sunday
You are travelling with young children

Our picks in City Centre & Bo-Kaap

Best for walking the city

Cape Heritage Hotel

Our pick for the centre because it stands on Bree Street in Heritage Square, which puts the restaurant strip, the museums and Bo-Kaap's slope within the only genuinely walkable part of Cape Town.