the royal hotel

The Royal, one of South Africa's oldest hotels, is beautifully refurbished and upgraded,

The Royal is one of the oldest hotels in South Africa, and always has been operational as such. Although by many referred as it's little sister, the hotel was already licensed as such even before the architect of the famous (and also very colonial) Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town was born.

The last structural change to the hotel was made in 1927 when the arched stoep was added, as seen on the picture taken after the completion. We like to think that sitting on this famous stoep inspired our Valley's most known “child” Jan Smuts, when he wrote the preamble of one of the world's most important institutions, assuring its existance up till today. We are talking of course, about the United Nations.

After 8 years having been prime minister of South Africa, Smuts lost the elections in 1948 to Daniel Malan - also from Riebeek. Although grown up together, Malan became the prime minister to install the Apartheid laws while Smuts can be seen as the first anti-apartheid politician. Although The Royal was the meeting place in those days, its hard to imagine them having a drink together.

With the introduction of those apartheid laws, a small part of the stoep of the hotel was used to create non-white bathrooms which were removed again in 2005 bringing the stoep back to its original state. As the hotel falls under South African Heritage no changes will be made and so The Royal will be preserved well into the future.