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Home - City Guide - Cape Town - Shopping | ||
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Shopping Most shopping precincts in Cape Town have been decentralised to suburban shopping malls, with hundreds of shops under one roof. Despite this, the city centre remains a shopaholics dream, with bargains aplenty in scores of little shops. While the shopping malls are generally open 0900-2000, seven days a week, central city hours are 0900-1700, Monday to Friday and 0900-1300 on Saturdays. Cape Town has, since the end of apartheid, become a Mecca for traders from all over Africa, and it is possible to buy African art from all corners of the continent within a few city blocks. Greenmarket Square, in the city centre, has a daily market that carries an eclectic range of goods, including African art, local jewellery, handmade clothing, music, books and antiques. Excellent, lightweight gifts are the painted clay passport masks from Cameroon, usually selling at about R35. Most of the streets that fan out from the square also have street traders selling goods from Africa, while The Pan African Market, 76 Long Street, is a cluster of small shops selling African art, textiles, ceramics, decor items, clothing, music and leather goods. Also in the market are a cafÉ, leathersmith, hair braiders, djembe drum tutors and tailors from West Africa. Antique lovers should stroll up and down Church Street and the section of Long Street just off Church Street, while the upper end of Long Street is home to the finest cluster of second-hand bookshops in Africa. Clarke's Book Shop, 211 Long Street, and Select Books, 186 Long Street, are both specialist antiquarian and Africana booksellers. While most of the suburban shopping malls cater for the domestic consumption market, there are several worth visiting for uniquely South African fashions, dÉcor items and artworks. They include Victoria Wharf at the V&A Waterfront, the V&A Craft Market (next to the Two Oceans Aquarium), Cavendish Square in Cavendish Street, Claremont, and the Constantia Village Shopping Centre, Main Road Constantia. The Green Point Market, outside Green Point Stadium in Somerset Road, is held every Saturday and Sunday 0900-1700, and has a vast number of stalls selling everything from antiques and African art to fake Nike and Reebok shoes and clothing. Visitors should beware of pickpockets here. Value added tax (VAT) of 14% is levied on all goods sold (although this is largely ignored in the markets), and visitors can reclaim this on their departure, provided they have kept all receipts and filled in the appropriate point of purchase forms, where necessary. |