Long Street is the most characterful of central Cape Town's streets, lined with cast-iron balconied Victorian buildings, antique stores, bookshops, backpacker hostels and a thick concentration of bars, restaurants and clubs. By day it is gently scruffy; by night it is the loudest strip in the city centre.
The Pan African Market and several long-running secondhand bookshops are worth a browse, and Clarke's Bookshop is a Cape Town institution. The street is the easiest place to spend an unstructured hour in the centre and to get a sense of the rougher, livelier side of downtown Cape Town. Stay alert at night, particularly past the upper end of the street.