Stunning Cape Town

view of Cape Town and Table Bay

Cape Town has many charms, not the least of which is its gorgeous setting.  We started our visit with 2 nights in Stellenbosch, a pretty town in the middle of South Africa’s wine region.  We enjoyed wine tastings at 2 wineries, La Motte and Vrede en Lust, both very professionally done and very informative about South African wines.  The wine valleys are deep and lush, filled with vineyards and framed by steep, rocky mountain ridges.  In the spring, which is right now, colorful wildflowers cover the mountainsides.  It is gorgeous. 

wine valley near Stellenbosch

A “must” visit in Cape Town is Table Mountain, open and accessible by cable car when clouds do not cover the mountain.  We had a beautiful, sunny day to visit, but the crowds waiting for the cable car drove us away.  It looked like we would have waited hours to get to the top, if we even got there before the afternoon clouds descended, and we had much more to see.  Several years ago, Don and I took a look at the long line for the cable car and decided to climb Table Mountain instead, scrambling 2000 feet up steep steps and trails cut into the rock.  After clambering back down, we could barely walk for 3 days, so we skipped that route this trip.

Table Mountain from Robben Island

Our small hotel (the Dock House, which we loved) was on the Victoria and Alfred waterfront, a slightly frenetic place filled with tourists and locals alike, beer joints, fine dining, dozens of shops, of course, a ferris wheel and mimes, musicians and street artists.  Lively and fun.  The terminal for visits to Robben Island, the notorious prison that housed Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders and members for 2 decades, is in the middle of the promenade.

Nelson Mandela's cell on Robben Island

We spent a morning visiting Robben Island.  The tour starts with a 40 minute boat ride from the waterfront to the island, then a bus ride to important sites, followed by a fascinating tour of the prison itself led by one of the former political prisoners.  You get to hear from someone who was part of the resistance about life in the prison for the political prisoners and the camaraderie they built up during their years of fighting for South Africa’s freedom from apartheid.  Everyone wants to see Nelson Mandela’s tiny cell, so it is a key stop on the tour.

At first, Mandela and his fellow political prisoners were denied adequate clothing for the cold falls and winters on the island—they had shorts, short-sleeved shirts and shoes, but no coats.  The windows in their cells were barred and open, no glass.  It wasn’t until years later that their warders provided them with warmer clothing and glass windows, probably after visits by the International Red Cross and other relief agencies and endless protests from the prisoners and their families, which included long hunger strikes.  These proved to be effective in improving conditions, but very gradually.

hillside of flowers at Kirstenbosch Garden

A high point of our Cape Town visit, which I recommend to everyone, was the Stellenbosch Botanical Garden.  Cecil Rhodes bought 600 acres of land on the side of Table Mountain to create a garden with which to impress Queen Victoria when she came to South Africa.  She never came, but the garden is a beautiful legacy to his hopes.  There are both native and foreign plants and trees there.  This is high season for flowers, so the garden was full of color.  A favorite of mine is the protea, which grows wild all over the Cape, with many different varieties and colors.  It is a bush with dense color because of the showy flowers.

female spotted eagle owl on nest

One resident of the Garden is the Spotted Eagle Owl, a beautiful, speckled owl about 12 inches in height.  Our guide showed us a female hiding in a tree, sitting on her eggs and peering out over some tall grass at her visitors.  Nearby was the male, standing tall on a large branch, waiting for his role in feeding their imminent offspring.  Another one of the owls is nesting inside the Garden gift shop/headquarters building, which is open to the sky.  She found a hanging basket full of flowers for her brood and was watching us warily from this perch.

male spotted eagle owl