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Cape Town

The suburbs and satellite towns of Cape Town sprawl across the low-lying Cape Flats and southwards over much of the scenically spectacular 60 kilometre long Cape Peninsula whose shores are, according to popular belief, lapped by two oceans.

Among the top attractions of the Cape Peninsula are the wide variety of good restaurants and bars, excellent hotels, craft markets and speciality stores, a lively calendar of dramatic arts and events, superb white, sandy beaches, the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, Table Mountain, its rotating cableway and the Peninsula’s unique mountain and coastal scenery.

The city centre of Cape Town is best explored on foot. Notable sites include the Castle of Good Hope, the Old Slave Lodge, the District Six Museum, the National Gallery, South African Museum and Planetarium, the Great Synagogue and Holocaust Museum, Greenmarket Square, eclectic Long Street, the Houses of Parliament, Groote Kerk, St George’s Cathedral and the Company’s Gardens, which started out as Jan van Riebeeck’s vegetable patch in the 1650s.

Connecting the city and harbour is the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, a multibillion-dollar private venture with numerous attractions including the Two Oceans Aquarium and a wealth of restaurants, bars and retail stores.
Table Mountain is Cape Town’s premier attraction, rising 1 086 metres above sea level with magnificent views. Visible from the top of the mountain is Robben Island, where former president Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for most of his 27-year imprisonment. Robben Island is easily combined with an afternoon tour of the townships of the Cape Flats, where entrenched poverty is juxtaposed with the new hope and energy of South Africa.

A leisurely day’s drive around the Cape Peninsula’s coastline comes highly recommended. Stops could include Hout Bay with its resident Cape fur seal colony (accessible by boat), popping in to see the African penguin colony at Boulder near Simon’s Town, wine tasting in Constantia and a wander around the famed Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.

During the long, hot summer months, the beaches of Bantry Bay, Clifton, Camps Bay and Llandudno are particularly popular. White, sandy beaches, washed by the azure waters of the cold Atlantic Ocean, attract holidaymakers from the city and abroad who turn up in their thousands to soak up some African sun.

For the more active traveller, the Cape Peninsula also plays host to a wide variety of experiences that include world-class golf courses, abseiling, aerobatic flips, coastal cruises, caving, cycling, scuba diving, sport fishing, helicopter flights, horseback riding, jetskiing, kayaking, kloofing, microlighting, paragliding, quad biking, sandboarding, kitesurfing, skydiving, surfing, windsurfing and much more.

Blessed with the most stunning of scenery, a pleasant climate, good agricultural land and abundant fish resources, the ‘fairest’ Cape has a rich history and culture to go with its famed tourist attractions.