South Africa Guide
Cape Town
CAPE TOWN is southern Africa's most beautiful, most romantic and most visited city. Indeed, few urban centres anywhere can match its setting along the mountainous Cape Peninsula spine, which slides into the Atlantic Ocean. By far the most striking – and famous – of its sights is Table Mountain, frequently shrouded by clouds, and rearing up from the middle of the city.
More than a scenic backdrop, Table Mountain is the solid core of Cape Town, dividing the city into distinct zones with public gardens, wilderness, forests, hiking routes, vineyards and desirable residential areas trailing down its lower slopes. Standing on the tabletop, you can look north for a giddy view of the city centre, its docks lined with matchbox ships. To the west, beyond the mountainous Twelve Apostles, the drop is sheer and your eye sweeps across Africa's priciest real estate, clinging to the slopes along the chilly but spectacularly beautiful Atlantic seaboard. To the south, the mountainsides are forested and several historic vineyards and the marvellous Botanical Gardens creep up the lower slopes. Beyond the oak-lined suburbs of Newlands and Constantia lies the warmerFalse Bay seaboard, which curves around towardsCape Point. Finally, relegated to the grim industrial east, are the coloured townships and black ghettos, spluttering in winter under the smoky pall of coal fires – your stark introduction to Cape Town when driving in.
To appreciate Cape Town you need to spend time outdoors, as Capetonians do: they hike, picnic or sunbathe, often choose mountain bikes in preference to cars, and turn adventureactivities into an obsession. Meanwhile, Cape Town's rich urban texture is immediately apparent in its diverse architecture, an indigenous Cape Dutch style, rooted in the Netherlands, that finds its apotheosis in the Constantia wine estates, which were themselves brought to new heights by French refugees in the seventeenth century; Muslim slaves, freed in the nineteenth century, added their minarets to the skyline; and the English, who invaded and freed these slaves, introduced Georgian and Victorian buildings.
Highlights
1 The Bo-Kaap One of Cape Town's oldest residential areas, its streets characterized by colourful nineteenth-century Cape Dutch and Georgian terraces.
2 Gold of Africa Museum The Golden Lion is the highlight of the Gold of Africa Museum, a major collection of historic African works of art.
3 Robben Island The infamous island prison that was Nelson Mandela's home for nearly two decades.
4 Kirstenbosch Gardens Picnic in one of the world's loveliest gardens
5 Rotate up Table Mountain Take the revolving cable car to the tabletop.
6 Chapman's Peak Drive Enjoy spectacular views as Cape Town's most precipitous road winds along a cliffside above the pounding Atlantic.
7 Swim with penguins at Boulders Beach Boulders Beach offers wonderful bathing and is home to a colony of African penguins.
8 Cape Point The dramatically rocky southernmost section of the Cape Peninsula offers excellent hikes.
Tours
1 Day Trippers 
021 511 4766 
www.daytrippers.co.za Cycling from Scarborough into the Table Mountain National Park, with hikes down to Cape Point and a picnic, as well as tours to the usual sights such as the Winelands (all R425). The peninsula day-trip includes Hout Bay, with the option of a boat trip to Duiker Island to see the seals and Boulders Beach for the penguins.
2 Grassroute Tours 021 706 1006 www.grassroutetours.co.za Half-day trips (R350) include a visit to African and coloured townships, and walking tours of the Bo-Kaap, covering the kramats (Muslim shrines). A day tour (R525) features a visit to Robben Island, with the cost of the ferry and island tour included in the price.
3 Hylton Ross Tours 021 511 1784 www.hyltonross.com Offers all major guided tours in and around Cape Town including Cape Winelands, townships, whale-watching and four-day Garden Route tours.
4 Our Pride 021 531 4291 or 082 446 7974 www.bonanitours.co.za Highly recommended tours on which you get to meet the people of the Bo-Kaap and District Six as well as the African townships and squatter camps. A full-day Winelands or Cape Point tour will cost R500, and half-day Gospel tours are available.
5 Touch Africa Tours 021 705 3201 or 083 400 2090 
atouch@iafrica.com Offers personalized tours of all the places of interest and beauty in and around Cape Town, with trips focusing on the Winelands, townships and local culture. Also offers tours and safaris anywhere in South and Southern Africa.
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