-UPDATE-

I have removed the virtual tour from Google maps as I don’t think they work very well.  You can now view the images at https://www.360cities.net/sets/image_sets/castle-of-good-hope

I have also updated the links on the pictures.

-erik

-END OF UPDATE-

Before I left South Africa for good and moved on to my next home in the Philippines (yes pictures will come later) I made one last trip to Cape Town and on the last day of my trip I visited the Castle of Good Hope.  The weather was perfect, the sky was clear, and the sun was bright so I decided to create a virtual tour of the castle.

The tour starts on the embankment along the moat (point A on the map) then moves into the main courtyard before proceeding up on to the ramparts and the guns at all 5 points of the fort.  The tour finishes by going through the lower areas of the castle and finishes at the main entrance from the street flanked by two cannons.

Click on the map to begin the tour.

Click on the map to begin the tour.

Each of the 16 images in the tour is a virtual environment and you can; click and drag to rotate or move up and down  scroll in our out to zoom.

After you click on the map (above) to load the tour you can move  to the next photosphere by clicking on the arrow shown on the sphere, if you don’t see this arrow scroll around the sphere and it will show up.  You can also use the keyboard shorts shown below.

Click on the arrow to go to the next sphere

Some handy keyboard shortcuts for navigation:

A: Rotate to the left
B: Rotate to the right
W: Move to the next photosphere
S: Return to the previous photosphere

The castle is one of the best preserved examples of a Dutch East Indies Company castle and was beautifully restored in the 1980’s when it was named a historical monument.  The castle was built-in the classic 5 point star shape in the 17th century adjacent to Table Bay in Cape Town, South Africa.  The star shape makes the fort highly defensible by allowing soldiers on the ramparts to defend against enemies attacking at any point along the fort.  The castle is no longer on the water front thanks to land reclamation efforts to extend Cape Town.

Read move on the Castle at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Good_Hope

-erik