The Mother City - Cape Town

A long-held dream of mine was to do a safari and in 2016, my husband and I got our chance to visit South Africa. We really wanted to see as much as we could, so we did a two stage trip, flying from London into Cape Town for a few days in the city before our foray our into the wild! Cape Town is a city filled with such diversity and history that it is definitely on my ‘must re-visit’ list. We chose the Table Bay Hotel, in the vibrant Victoria & Alfred Waterfront area for our stay. This lively area is filled with shops, restaurants and street entertainers, but it is also South Africa’s oldest working harbour, so it made a great base for our Cape Town stay. We had been told that this luxurious hotel was the resort of choice for celeb-spotting, and true to its word, we found ourselves propping up the bar with at least one famous legend on one of our evenings there! From our room, in fact…from our bed…we had a view of the impressive Table Mountain. It was quite something. We had booked a cable car trip up the mountain, but we had travelled in June so the low winter clouds scuppered us and it wasn’t to be. Locals told us that this low white cloud that sits above the mountain is know as the Tablecloth, and we could really see why. Instead, we took a tour to see the Twelve Apostles Mountain range – these breath-taking peaks form the rear of Table Mountain facing the Atlantic and they create a stunning vista. The skyline is dominated by these mountains – and they are known as the Twelve Apostles after Jesus’s disciples. Odd…as depending on where you stand when you are counting, there are definitely 17 or 18 peaks! We didn’t dwell on that too much, instead, we just enjoyed the beauty of the area. We took a walk up to a vantage point to give us a full panoramic view of the whole of the city. The Cape Town Stadium, built for the 2010 football world cup was a dominant sight – but in the same view we could see Robben Island off the coast. Taking time to consider the history of this tiny little island gave a real moment of reflection. We also decided to take a waterfront safari into the harbour. We didn’t pre-book, as we were travelling in the quieter winter time, but this would be something to pre-arrange at busier times of the year. Our boat trip took us around the harbour and gave us plentiful time to watch the Cape Fur Seals and to get a view of African penguins. While in Cape Town it would have been remiss of us not to visit a vineyard, so we chose a tour of the Groot Constantia winery. Established in 1685, this is one of the oldest wineries in the area. Only about 30 minutes from our hotel, we spent a fantastic evening touring, learning and most importantly tasting! I’d really recommend this to any wine lover…and to any non-wine lover as you’ll be converted! Our short, fabulous, visit to Cape Town was over…but we knew there was so much more to come…tomorrow…Kruger National Park…