Cape Town

Overview

We planned this trip around the Okavango, not Cape Town. August is the dry season in Botswana — the right call for safari — and it drops you into Cape Town in the middle of winter. That tradeoff is worth knowing before you go: the city is beautiful, the weather is not guaranteed, and Table Mountain will be in clouds more often than not.

Cape Town Sites

We chose not go to to Robben Island, famously one of several prisons where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned (1964–1982). Several people, including Kili from Next Adventure, suggested that Robben Island is a big trip — a 6-hour trip end-to-end (waiting for the boat, the boat trip, etc) … to have your 3 minutes in front of Mandela’s cell, and that it may not be worth the overhead. Evidently in the past the tour guides would be former prisoners, and 10–15 years ago you might have anecdotes of people who knew the great man … now much less so as the former prisoners age out.

I read one TripAdvisor review in which the young tour guide made vaguely racist jokes on Robben Island … blech.

To learn some about apartheid history, we found the District 6 museum compelling — it’s not huge, it’s a 90–120 minute visit, but well worth it. District 6 was an entire mixed-race neighborhood that the apartheid government just decided to empty and then bulldoze in the 1960s, because it was too close to white areas. The stories told are compelling, and we found it affecting. Interestingly, we saw a tour guide there who was a former resident of that neighborhood … our tour guide was the child of two District 6 residents. Book a tour in advance, the guided tours were sold out the day we were there.

The District 6 Museum tells the harrowing story of apartheid from the microcosm of a single neighborhood. The government decided in 1966 that this district of Cape Town should be designated whites-only, and forcibly removed 60,000 people from a thriving community. Our guide was the child of a couple who were amongst those dislocated. In the back of this main hall are street signs rescued from the neighborhood.

There's something about being right in front of an actual sign from the era that is searing. — There’s something about being right in front of an actual sign from the era that is searing.

We thoroughly enjoyed GOLD for an evening show. We thought it was “just” dinner, but it’s really a full-on dinner theater, probably a 90-minute show with multi-course African-themed food. It’s unambiguously something for tourists … but it was/is extremely well-executed. The performers had infectious energy, and the food was excellent. Per our overall comments on Cape Town security … they had a Gold staff member escort us the 30 *feet* to our Uber.

We saw an African cultural show at Gold Restaurant our first night. Sure it was/is for tourists, but the energy was infectious, and the food was tasty.

A standard Cape Town recommendation is to ascend Table Mountain on the gondola. Sadly, they close the gondola up the mountain 5 days a year for maintenance. Guess which days we were there? So we can’t tell you how that is.

As much as it's in every tourist guide for Cape Town, it's difficult to overestimate how much Table Mountain *looms* over the central district. We had quite a bit of cloud cover, but one day where the view was perfect. — As much as it’s in every tourist guide for Cape Town, it’s difficult to overestimate how much Table Mountain *looms* over the central district. We had quite a bit of cloud cover, but one day where the view was perfect.

We certainly had quite a bit of time from Cape Town in which we couldn’t see the top of the mountain.

Table Mountain bathed in clouds from Mt Nelson hotel

Outside of Cape Town

A day-long Cape Peninsula tour is worth a full day of your trip. Doing the full loop down the west coast, over Chapman’s Peak drive, down all the way to Cape Point, and then back is probably 3ish hours of more of straight driving, but it ends up being quite a bit of a day given all the stops for photo opps, short walks, etc. We wouldn’t recommend our vendor, as our driver was casually racist in a way we didn’t love (a direct quote from our driver: “all blacks here don’t want to work”), do your own searching to find a well-reviewed driver. Our friend who did it a year before us drove it herself, and wished she’d had a driver, and we were happy we did, as some of the driving is on narrow hairpin-y roads (on the left hand side of the road, of course).

Baboons in Table Mountain National Park. They crossed right in front of our vehicle, with one male taking the time (not pictured) to copulate in mid-street-crossing.

The Cape of Good Hope marked the spot where early Portuguese travellers could start travelling more east than south on their way to Asia. The line to get The Picture of us behind the sign was longer than felt worth it to us.

The African penguins on Boulder Beach are adorable and extremely accessible. Sadly, at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town they warned us that African penguins may not make it past the 2030s. Too much food disappearing.

African penguins at Boulders Beach, about an hour from Cape Town. They are sadly highly endangered.

We had a lovely lunch out at Cape Point at Two Oceans Restaurant, it was better than expected for a touristy spot, it worked well.

Cape Point (the Southwest tip of Africa) in the background.

Gardens and Wine

Kirstenbosch is the oldest botanical garden in South Africa. It’s a 15 or 20 minute drive from the Central Business District, “behind” Table Mountain from a Cape Town perspective, but a (beautiful) world apart. It’s to our mind well worth 2 or 3 hours of your time in Cape Town. The best or only trails to the top of Table Mountain actually start near here, on the “back” (less table-shaped) side of Table Mountain.

The Kirstenbosch botanical garden is only 20 minutes from downtown Cape Town, but feels a world apart.

We visited Kirstenbosch guided by Christopher Smith, who was recommended to us by a friend who visited Kirstenbosch in 2024. His website will show that one of his main passions is hiking, and he takes groups up Lion’s Head and Table Mountain (not something my knees can accommodate these days). But he is also extremely passionate about plants, and was wonderful company for those several very informative hours, and took some excellent photos.

The protea is the national flower of South Africa, and common at Kirstenbosch

The Constantia Valley is a small and venerable wine region found right on the southern outskirts of Cape Town; this is distinct from the Cape Winelands (see separate article) which are north and east of town (and further away). We were able to visit Groot Costantia, a winery that dates to the 17th century, on our way back from our Cape Peninsula tour, it’s also 10 minutes from Kirstenbosch and 22 minutes from the Mt Nelson so in retrospect we could have planned differently.

This turned out to be one of the best wineries we visited in South Africa, and we wish we’d ordered some from there but didn’t know at the time because it was the first South African winery we visited.

It’s run as a non-profit, to preserve South Africa’s wine heritage; I feel as though its wines may be under-priced for their quality in retrospect. Excellent stop, highly recommended.

Where We Stayed

We stayed at the Mount Nelson, a venerable 1899 hotel with notable past guests including Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, and John Lennon. We found it outstanding in every way, a lovely spot to relax after 20 hours of flying and before heading out to safari.

We booked a dinner one night at the Kloof Street House, which is about 500 yards from the hotel — and the hotel insisted on having a staff member escort us there due to perceived risk (they said daytime didn’t worry them). It’s always tricky to talk about safety, as different people have different experiences and/or risk profiles. Is this overkill? It’s so hard to know.

Kevin did have one uncomfortable encounter during that short walk — a clearly intoxicated man loudly shouted something along the lines of “figures, it’s a white guy.” It wasn’t violent, but it wasn’t pleasant either.

That sort of thing can happen anywhere, and a friend who stayed nearby in 2023 felt perfectly safe. Still, if the hotel insists on escorts at night, it changes how the city feels.

Cape Town is a beautiful city, but most visitors will rely heavily on Uber rather than walking after dark. Uber worked extremely well in Cape Town and was remarkably cheap, which helped mitigate some of those concerns.

There’s a section of Cape Town known as the “V&A Waterfront” (Victoria & Albert). This is where the cruise ships dock (not in August, but in general), and is an enclosed, highly sanitized section with security in a great deal of evidence — vs a lot of the rest of town where police were certainly not highly visible. Many hotels are in the V&A section, and there are quite a few lovely hotels — we’re not necessarily sad we didn’t stay there, but it would have been nice to be able to just get out and walk without quite as much security concerns, perceived or otherwise, around it.

Food & Dining

Kloof Street House is housed in an eclectically-decorated Victorian era home. It features a widely varied menu, including some local dishes not common in the US — the ostrich was excellent.

We had 2 dinners at Mt. Nelson and each was excellent. We especially recommend Chef’s Table if you stay there, it’s a special experience inside the kitchen, away from the main dining room.

We did have a great lunch at the Time Out Market in V&A.