Everyone who braved the stormy night on Thursday June 5 to attend A CapeOdyssey, an illustrated talk about Cape Town’s history and some of its special secrets, at The Orthodox Centre in Lyndon Crescent, felt that it was totally worth it.
Among the guests who were also hooked on Cape Town’s history were His Eminence, Archbishop Sergios and Mr Nassos Martalas, Chairman of the HCC.
Gabriel Athiros, a well-known member of our community and owner of Historical Media, has published 12 beautifully-illustrated books relating to the early beginnings and heritage of our fair Mother City, including several about the shipwrecks that lie hidden below our gorgeous but often cruel coastline.
Gabriel took us through several stages of the discovery and subsequent settlements of this particular spot on the coastline at the bottom of Africa which was feared by sailors as the Cape of Storms, but revered by traders and colonialists as the gateway to the East.
His talk was very professional with great illustrations and his knowledge and obvious love of the subject shone through in his warm and very entertaining presentation which made all the historical characters, legends and hard facts explode into life around us.
It was also filled with fascinating little tidbits of information about places, buildings and architectural items we pass every day and take for granted and we all made up our minds to take a new look at our beloved Cape Town from now on.
Pepe Sofianos who introduced Gabriel and the subject of his talk, closed the evening by admitting what we all thought — if Gabriel had been our history teacher, we would all have got straight A’s!
By Pepe Sofianos.