V&A Waterfront

This guide to the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town starts with the storm of June 1858, which wrecked thirty ships in Table Bay in a single night and pushed Lloyd's of London to refuse insuring vessels here at all. It follows engineer John Coode's plan for a real harbour, Prince Alfred tipping the first stone into the water in 1860, and the gold and diamond rush that outpaced the new basin almost as soon as it opened. Look for the old tidal gauge still hidden in the base of the Clock Tower.