| |
|
Known as the mother city, Cape Town and the Western Cape remains South Africa’s most breathtaking jewel. Cape Town is the oldest city in South Africa and has a cultural heritage of more than 300 years.
Don´t miss a visit up Table Mountain; the V&A Waterfront, a unique shopping and holiday experience on a scenic working harbour; Robben Island, the former home of Nelson Mandela and the Cape Town Wine Routes, where some of the world´s best wines are produced.
The unique topography of the region makes it easy to orientate oneself as long as you remember that with Table Mountain behind you and Robben Island before you, you are facing north, looking across Table Bay and up the west coast of Africa.
The Western Cape is a wonderland of beauty and a landscape shaped by powerful natural and political forces. Its turbulent history lives through its heritage, resonating in the people, places and stories that tell the tales of the past. In the decade of democracy following the birth of the “rainbow nation” looking back along that road makes for a fascinating adventure.
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
Cape Point & the Cape of Good Hope are known to sailors as the Cape of Storms! They form part of the southern most tip of a peninsula that cuts into the cold Atlantic Ocean south of the city of Cape Town and has been declared a National Park.
The Park is recognised globally for its extraordinarily rich, diverse and unique fauna and flora - with rugged cliffs, steep slopes and sandy flats - is a truly remarkable natural, scenic, historical, cultural and recreational asset both locally and internationally. Nowhere else in the world does an area of such spectacular beauty and such rich bio-diversity exist almost entirely within a metropolitan area - the thriving and cosmopolitan city of Cape Town. |
| |
|
| |
From the 17th to the 20th centuries, Robben Island served as a place of banishment, isolation and imprisonment. Today it is a World Heritage Site and museum, a poignant reminder to the newly democratic South Africa of the price paid for freedom.
Although the purpose and use of the island changed a number of times over the last century or so, it more recently gained international notoriety as a prison for contemporary political figures including South Africa's first democratically elected President, Nelson Mandela. |
| |
|
| |
Table Mountain, South African jewel, international tourism icon and Natural World Heritage Site. Situated at the south-western tip of Africa, the Table Mountain National Park encompasses the incredibly scenic Table Mountain Chain stretching from Signal Hill in the north to Cape Point in the south and the seas and coastline of the peninsula.
The narrow finger of land with its beautiful valleys, bays and beaches is surrounded by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the warmer waters of False Bay and has within its boundaries two world-renowned landmarks - majestic Table Mountain and the legendary Cape of Good Hope.
The ascent to the top of Table Mountain in the cable car takes just under 10 minutes and offers you a 360 degree view of the city. Once on top there are over 2km of pathways leading you to views over Cape Town, Table Bay, Robben Island the Cape Flats and the Cape Peninsula. |
| |
Situated between Robben Island and Table Mountain in the heart of Cape Town's working harbour, the V&A Waterfront has become South Africa's most visited destination. Set against a backdrop of magnificent sea and mountain views, exciting shopping and entertainment venues are intermingled with imaginative office locations, world-class hotels and luxury apartments in the residential marina.
Over the past 140 years, the harbour has undergone numerous changes, which continue even today with the redevelopment of land and buildings surrounding the original Victoria & Alfred Basins. Many of the historical buildings that made up the original harbour are now national monuments.
The construction of the two harbour basins took place between 1860 and 1920, and the area is notable for its outstanding heritage buildings. It retains the charm of Victorian industrial architecture and the scale of a harbour built for sail and the early days of steam travel.
back |
|
|
