We were really lucky to be able to redeem BA miles for first class flights so that was a great start to the holiday. The only time I will ever be told to turn left when boarding! A cabin of only 14 with huge seats and so much legroom you could not stretch out enough to touch the seat in front. Champagne before liftoff, fine dining with a table made up with linen tablecloth and proper cutlery. Good wines and a port to finish. Then you change into your pyjamas and the stewardess makes up your bed for you. Both our flights were night ones so it was great to be able to sleep in a flat bed.
The airport is undergoing work to cope with the influx for next year's world cup but we found passport control and baggage collection fast. The journey in is interesting. You quickly pass townships and our driver pointed out that the shacks were being demolished and permanent housing being put in. Also observed that they were starting with the ones visible from the road. We since found out that there have been pledges made to replace all tin shacks but I do wonder if this will carry on beyond the World Cup.
The first view of Table Mountain takes your breath away. In fact it continued to do that throughout the holiday. The Protea North Wharf was a great find. The first picture on that page could have been our room.By the way they talk about rooms and suites and ours is a room believe it or not. We had a lounge area, dining area, a full kitchen complete even with a dishwasher and a washer/dryer (used that one a lot). The bed was so comfortable, heaps of storage space (more than you could ever use). There was a large entrance area and the bathroom had a bath and a shower cubicle. This was not on the Waterfront but was only a 10-15 min stroll away. It was a lot less than the hotels on the V&A. Will do a hotel review shortly.
We started off with a wander down to the Waterfront. It was Saturday and quite busy with loads of things on the go. We sat down at an outdoor restaurant /bar and had the first of many wines over the week (well you have to, don't you? ) and a light lunch and enjoyed being somewhere hot. Bizarrely a mass pillow fight started out on the quayside. People were buying tickets to join in. Close by we had some African dancers and drummers.
Discovered that V&A stood for Victoria and Alfred. Always assumed it was Albert. We continued to stroll. I like the Waterfront as it is actually a working harbour and interesting to watch all the comings and goings. There is a swing bridge there so frequently you are held up as boats need to get through - the bridge can be out of action for up to 10 mins. However, it is also a good place for seal watching.
Run out of time now so will continue tomorrow.

Look lovely Fiona Glad to hear you had a great time.

Sounds a lovely trip, Fiona. Did you go up the Cableway?

Very swish hotel!

I've been too busy organising another holiday today to add to my report Will certainly add to it tomorrow. Yes, we did go up Table Mountain- great experience did do my hotel report though
http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/reviews/south-africa/cape-town/protea-north-wharf-hotel/
Might look swish but it was only £85 a night which is a lot less than the Waterfront ones, which would have one room only

Glad you had a good time Fiona, fantastic place.....ooooh did you get to the shopping bit I mentioned

Not a bad price to be just that bit away from the waterfront, Fiona. Sounds really good in your report. I like the idea of an apartment and it's facilities (occasionally do the same myself where I can do so).

Good to hear you got up Table Mountain

paully - we didn't actually get to the mall. OH was scared that I would buy even more handbags and shoes Still- perhaps next time.
Phoebe- the apartment was great. We got through a lot of clothes as you really two changes in a day and we used the washer/dryer a few times. We actually put a big wash in our last night to save it being done when we got home. We often use the laundry in hotels so this save quite a bit of money.
On to my report!


Trips / sightseeing
Two Oceans Aquarium- This is on the Waterfront. I enjoyed this. I like the fact that they keep quite a few of the larger for a short time before returning them to the ocean. Favourite bit was the watching the divers feeding the predators. Funnily enough it wasn't the sharks which were the stars it was the turtles. They apparently don't know when to stop eating( I know the feeling!!) and they had been trained to only come for the food when a coloured bat was being held up.

Hop on/hop off bus- red route
There are 17 stops on this one and its not really possible to see them all in one day.
District 6 museum- You can't escape the Apartheid past. This was shocking just by the sheer scale of it all. District Six was rezoned as a whites only area under the Group Area Act. 60 000 residents were forced out by 1967. The houses were bulldozed. When you see the huge map there with all the street names you can understand why many of the residents thought it would never happen. The area remains empty, with rubbish and weeds growing. There were continued arguments over what should be done. Ex residents are now able to put in claims for their land and a one line of houses has already been built- the eldest ex residents were given those. The museum itself shows photos and recollections of its residents and recreates a few rooms as they would have been. It also has domes where you can see the newspapers of the time.There were benches there for whites and blacks- they also have this outside one of the municipal buildings as a reminder of how things were.
Castle of Good Hope- this is actually a fort and not a castle. This was interesting and we stayed there longer than we thought we would. They are still working on restoring it. From there you can see the City Hall where Mandela made his first public speech from the Balcony.
Table Mountain- We have been to a view memorable viewpoints- the Peak in Hong Kong, Christ the Redeemer in Rio, the fort in Jaipur and I'm not sure which was the best one. Table mountain is stunning- both viewing it from the ground and seeing the view from the top. I had not realised just how long you could spend walking along the paths at the top of the mountain. We were there a couple of hours at least. We also watched a couple of brave folks at the beginning of their abseiling. ( love the slogan for the company by the way- We will ALWAYS let you down. ) We did not have to wait for the cable but in busy times of the year it is always better to book a time.
Camps Bay- this is in both red and blue bus routes- and we stopped here twice. From here you see the back of Table Mountian and there are peaks showing and not the level surface you see from the city. Lovely place and busy beaches. Not many go into the water though as it is freezing.- even though the daily temperature was usually 27 degrees when we were there. It is a great place to sit at one of the bars and people watch. There are often some famous faces to be seen. OH swore it was Simon Cowell we saw at the most famous cocktail place but I'm not sure. Have a feeling that place may employ lookalikes!
We did the red route over a couple of days as the first day we did not start till 11.30.

Blue route
This follows a similar route for a lot of the way but then it veers out of the city and the drive overall is lovely. You see a few smaller bays - Hout Bay Harbour looks a lovely spot to stop but by the time we got to that it was heading on in time.
Kirstenbosch -this is one of the world's top botanical gardens and even though we were heading to their Autumn it was still a stunning place especially with the mountain backdrop. It is also massive. We enjoyed a couple of hours there wandering around in the lovely sunshine.
World of Birds- great place and it doesn't just have birds - there are reptiles and mammals including loads of different types of monkeys. We saw ones we didn't know existed. One type of monkey was about the size of my hand. They also have meercats. I love them and could watch them for ages. The funny thing was that they still had one poor meerkat on lookout duties. It looked quite skinny while the others were fat- I imagined that the others had cottoned on to the fact that they didn't need lookouts but this one hadn't!! You wander through aviaries. One had a small parrot that decided he liked the man in front of us and landed on his shoulder, refusing to come off. Wife was in hysterics and so were we. There were no keepers around so I did wonder how long it took him to get rid of it. The parrots mate decided to run around trying to peck our toes!
The blue route also has a stop where a guide is there to meet you and take you round a township. As we were already going on another township tour we opted not to go in this one. But the tour returning to the bus obviously found it very interesting.

Robben Island
We had an interesting trip to Robben Island. It takes about 30 mins to get there by ferry. We booked this online as it can be busy and visitors are often disappointed in not being able to see the island in the time they have in CT. As it happens people were buying tickets on the day. There is a coach trip round the island, which is very small. The coastline is beautiful but its quite barren on the island itself. Any greenery was imported on to the island. It has had prisoners there since the 1600s. And also it has had a leper colony. Some sad tales from there. What is interesting is that the guides who take you round were themselves ex prisoners on the Island. I won't go into the details but the stories are shocking and even more so when you get your head round the fact that this is very recent history. We saw the prison cell Nelson Mandela had and heard about their daily routines. We also saw the limestone quarry where Mandela worked for 18 years and saw the cave where a lot of discussions and plans were made( they were safe from guards as this was the toilet cave!) There was a reunion of ex prisoners there in 1990 and there is now a cairn where Mandela laid the first stone and everyone else followed. Very informative tour and I now have The Long Walk to Freedom to read.
Slave Lodge
This is worth a visit. It is situated beside the Company Gardens which in themselves are well worth seeing. This documents graphically the 180 years that the Cape used slaves. The building itself housed on average 800 slaves.
The Company Gardens are just lovely. Everyone using them. Unlike our parks it was designed to have as much shade as possible and so there are lots of trees. Also seems to be hundreds of tame squirrels.
Winelands Day Tour
This involved tasting 16 different wines over the day!! Believe it or not I was pretty much sober at the end of it as well!! We visited 3 wineries- all very different from each other. The last one had extensive grounds and was supporting a charity there to protect cheetahs. You can enter the enclosures with the young cheetahs.
We also had a fair amount of time in the town of Stellenbosch which is just delightful. We had taken the decision to not do the Garden Route this visit but to perhaps return to do it. But if the towns along that route are similar to Stellenbosch then it would be a "must do".

nearly there- just one last post should do it!

Enjoying this report Fiona brings back so many memories,pleased you managed to
get over to Robben Island. interesting but also very sad,
annx

I loved the place but my father told me it was the murder capital of the world. To be honest I didn't think it was but he took great delight today in asking me if I had seen the news last night( which I hadn't). We never saw anything violent apart from when we just happened to come across ( next to our hotel) an armed diamond robbery with robbers and police with machine guns!

OMG
annx

Cape of Good Hope and Nature Reserve
Had heard pretty mixed reports about this trip from the others on our Wineland Tour. Majority thought that it was too long in the coach. On that basis we decided to just do the half day tour and picked a company the others hadn't used. It was a great decision. The trip times were down as 1.30-5.30( approx). We found out on boarding the minibus that it was actually until 7pm and that even turned out to be closer to 7.30. It was a great day. You take the coastal route and the scenery as usual is stunning. Lots of lovely little villages and settlements hugging the coastline. We stopped off at Simon's Town, somewhere that was not offered in the other tours we looked at. We knew it was a very scenic town so were delighted to be able to explore it a bit. We then went to just outside the town to Boulder's Beach and the penguins. This was fascinating, being able to view penguins outiside of a zoo. Apparently they just ended up on this beach sometime in the 70s and made it their home. Loved seeing the babies.
We then went on to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, where we saw some of the wildlife, including baboons, eland and ostriches on our drive to Cape Point. We took the funicular and then climbed the last bit of the way to the lighthouse. High up the winds were something else and I actually found the last few steps a bit scarey. The views were of course worth it.
We then travelled about 10 mins( more because we stopped to view wildlife along the way) to the Cape of Good Hope. What I can say about the scenery that I haven't said already?
We then made our way back to CT stopping to watch the sunset along the way.
Our guide was first class. In fact I think he was part owner of the company
http://www.cape-escape-tours.co.za
We used them for the next tour too.

Townships Tour
If you get the chance opt for the Sunday tour as it includes a visit to Langa Baptist Church. We were also very lucky to be there on Easter Sunday. Langa is a black township( there are black ones and coloured ones). This was our first stop. Along the way I realised that my idea of what a township was, was wrong. There are tin shacks galore but also proper buildings. The tin shacks which are formal ones have an address and the postie delivers the mail to it. There are ofcourse informal settlements. Most do not have water but get from the street tap. A lot do have electricity( but by the looks of the lines coming from the pylons a lot of it is stolen) The wierdest sight was satellite dishes coming from a couple of tin shacks!! The settlements have roads as well as sandy paths, and shops and schools. The shops ranged from a supermarket to loads of tin shacks.
We stopped at the church and the singing we heard getting out of the minibus was something else. When we actually entered the church it was filled to the rafters with the most beautiful singing it gave you goosebumps. They welcome tourists and have seats at the back for you. No wonder so many of the world's best singers started off singing in church. Our guide suggested half an hour to 45 minutes but we all loved it so much it was 55 mins later before we felt we had to leave.
We then went on a traditional herbalist. It was almost like a cave that we entered and very dark. There was a huge bizarre assortment of dried animal parts, plants and goodness knows what else hanging from the ceiling. I do wonder why there were old, dusty lottery tickets hanging up as well . He spoke with us and it was fascinating. He looked something like one of these medecine men you see in cowboy and indian movies.
We drove through another settlement( this one was a coloured one) and learned a lot about the history behind them and the code that they live by-Ubuntu- where everyone is your brother or sister and support each other.
We stopped for a long walk at Khayalitsha township. This area was poor and was all tin shacks more or less. Our guide came from this township and clearly this was an area of it where he knew everyone and we would be safe. Have to say I never felt any fear on our walk round and the local folks were friendly. We were shown inside a couple of the shacks. It does make you rethink as you assume certain things and you then find that you are wrong. The vast majority of folks just want a decent life. (but of course there are still shootings within some areas). We visited a shebeen- their pub and then bizarrely we ended up in the only B&B! This is a wooden, two storey structure with an interesting history as to why it was started. We soon found out that it is at this point that the guide gives the B&B owner money to buy the local children crisps or sweets. He went across the road with her to buy and to hand out to the fast growing line of kids.
When we were in Rio we decided not to go in to the flavelas as we felt it might be a bit intrusive. We struggled as well over whether to go on this tour and I'm so glad I did.
If I had to pick one memory only from our holiday it would be the time in the church.
At the airport I found a book written by a white African who tried staying in Khayalitsha for a while. I am reading it just now and its very good and even better when I can picture the place.

We did a few more things within the city but these were the main things we did.

Just a quick post about restuarants. We stuck with the V&A also Long Street. V&A is more expensive but we never had a meal above £35 ( for two of us)anywhere and that included two courses, a bottle of wine usually and a beer.
Tried most of the game(ostrich, springbok, kudu, karoo) and also loved kingklip and snoeke(sp?) - both fish.Husband tried the crocodile- he liked it but I thought it was a bit strong tasting. We also had a couple of Cape Malay dishes- lovely.
We didn't have a bad meal anywhere apart from African Cafe -and that wasn't bad but just that it was a set meal of various dishes to try. The mains were not anything I would have ordered. There was no entertainment when we were there and it was our most expensive meal by far.
Mama Afrika-loved this place. Food great and really cheap and entertainment wonderful. We went there twice. You have to book in advance.
Quayfour-popular to eat downstairs but went upstairs to a more formal menu. We also ate there twice. Beautifully cooked and presented.
Krugmanns Grill- superb food.
Karibu- great food but service left a lot to be desired.
The wine - I never got one I didn't like and we often sat and watched the world go by late afternoon with a couple of glasses. Very cheap. In supermarkets £3 will buy you wine that you would spend more than double for at home.

This is quite a long report but hopefully will be useful for anyone planning a future visit- the quarter finals of the World Cup are going to be held in Cape Town The stadium is being built right now and swamps the buildings around it- a lot of which will have lost their Table Mountain views.

That's what I call a report! Great reading and very informative Fiona.

Nice to be able to try great wines at good prices too. So many places I visit aren't exactly producers of such nice wines

Great report Fiona, really makes me want to visit SA. I'm not sure if it's a destination I would want to travel to on my own, I guess I'll have to start working on my OH.

Judith

Funnily enough Judith on the tours we went on there were was always at least one woman on her own. May be because there are so many conventions and conferences. The problems are not really during the day( although we did come across the end of the armed jewellery robbery) and you can use things like the hop on hop off bus without any worries. At night, you would do exactly as we did and take taxis. The Waterfront is very safe at night. In main tourist areas you will often find security folks around.
The area around Cape Town is stunning and I can understand why so many Brits have homes there.

Thanks Fiona, perhaps I'll add Cape Town to my never ending list.

Judith

Thanks Fiona you have given us loads of ideas for when we go in June, can you let me know what type of adaptor I need for straightners etc

Thanks

they have the sockets we used to have years back. You will need one for three round pins.
Sorry it took so long to answer- haven't been around for a while.