CaPE Town is jaw droppingly beautiful. It’s a huge city, the
second largest in the country after Johannesburg with about 3.5 million inhabitants. It also has a
very European ‘feel’ which is not surprising given that Netherlands’ Jan van Riebeeck first landed here
in 1652 when assigned by the Dutch East India Company to set up a way-station for ships traveling
to the Dutch East Indies.
My husband Christian and I spent the majority of our 3-day Cape
Town stay in and around the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. Our
home for 4 nights was the luxurious and perfectly located Cape
Grace Hotel. The V&A Waterfront is the tourist epicenter of Cape
Town. It is still a working harbour, but also hosts shopping malls,
craft markets and too many restaurants and cafes to count. Dubai
World, a UAE holding company, recently purchased the V&A
Waterfront and it was evident by the seven cranes we could see
Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa
from our hotel suite terrace that there was a lot of building going on
in anticipation of the 2010 World Cup.
During our visit we spent half a day at Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for
over 18 years. We took a short helicopter tour over the city and environs, and explored beyond the
city’s borders to Cape Point
and Boulders Beach to
see the famous penguins.
One of the more surprising
aspects of this huge city is
that for the most part it is
spotlessly clean. We learned
that there is a government
program in place where the
homeless are paid to pick-up
trash. This extends beyond
Cape Town to the towns and
villages of the Western Cape.
Other areas worth exploring
are the neighborhoods of
BoKaap, DeWaterkant,
and Cape Flats; the
beaches of Camps Bay and
Clifton; and, for nightlife
and restaurants Long and
“Seeing the animals on safari, in the wild, is exactly what I had expected, but not really. I
Kloof Streets.
know what the animals look like so there were so surprises here. I kept reminding myself
and thinking, “they’re not in cages, I’m not at the zoo.” I was in their domain, their world
and metaphorically, I was the animal in the cage (or rather a vehicle).” - Rochelle
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