Twelve reasons
to read the footnotes.

Cape Town has a way of making you look up.

At the mountain. At the clouds moving over its edge. At the enormous sky that seems to follow you all the way to the ocean.

But some of the city's most remarkable stories are much closer to the ground.

A name worn into a pavement. A stream that still runs beneath the streets. A building whose name changed because people decided it was time to remember someone else.

There are twelve stories here, and they don't offer a simple picture of the city.

One begins with a Khoekhoe woman who lived between two very different worlds, and whose own account of her life never survived.

Another concerns a woman born into slavery who later became the owner of a wealthy estate.

Some women fought to change the country around them. Others made art that caused outrage, stood silently in protest, or found their names attached to institutions that had once excluded people like them.

Cape Town's history is full of such contradictions.

You'll encounter them in public squares, old gardens, university grounds, and places where the city meets the sea.

Not every story has a comfortable ending.

And not every woman remembered here was free to choose the life she lived.

That matters.

Because to explore Cape Town is also to encounter the lives that shaped it, the inequalities built into its streets, and the people who challenged what they found there.

Yet there are unexpected moments of lightness, too.

An English writer discovering the pleasures of surfing. A famous sea burial that, according to the accounts, didn't go quite as planned.

Cape Town has room for many kinds of stories.

Some have been told for centuries. Others are still being reconsidered.

And beneath that extraordinary mountain, there is considerably more to discover than the view.

You don't need to know what happens before you go. You only need somewhere worth walking toward.

JUNO PORTALS is designed primarily for women traveling alone.

That doesn't mean every experience has to be solitary. It means the product starts from a simple reality: sometimes you're already here, the day is yours, and you'd like a reason to go somewhere you might otherwise have passed.

Read the access note for the portal you choose. Some places are further out than they look on the map, and some are private or working places you only see from outside.

THE WRONG BATH, THE RIGHT CLIMB needs a ticket or paid entry.

BORN ENSLAVED, LISTED AS OWNER depends on opening hours.

Prices and hours change. Check them on the day.

Curiosity gets you there. Your judgment always comes first.