Back to the Mother City

For Christmas this year Emily and I traveled to Cape Town. What was already a fantastic destination was even more special as the first place I lived abroad and hadn’t been back to since. I was excited to re-visit all the places I remembered both to satisfy my nostalgia and to see how much my perceptions had changed. We also have some friends from Zambia now living there, which worked out wonderfully for us. Though we didn’t actually get to see Hans and Jacquee, they generously loaned us their apartment for our days in the city. And Christmas day with our friends Tommy and Mars made it that much more homey and special.

Our trip took us both all around town and out to other areas of the Western Cape including wine country, Cape Point, and along the Garden Route. I’ve written an itinerary below with our favorite stops, meals and lodging- complete with photos from the journey.

Car rental: I was uncertain whether we should use a budget company, but we ended up going with RentalCars.com, which connected us with a good deal at Europcar and included simple insurance coverage. We were very happy with our car and the process was straightforward.

Day 1

Cape Town

V&A Waterfront area

We spent our first day exploring the waterfront area and immediately diving into some sushi. Beluga Sushi is half price on weekdays, a good deal and only walking distance from the water. The V&A itself is a very busy mall and not a very pleasant place to just hang out unless you're in the mood for some high-end shopping, though there is a big movie theater. For dinner we tried a place down Kloof Street called Black Sheep. Food was decent, especially the tuna tartare, and the atmosphere was good for long, enjoyable conversations. They also carried a range of local craft beers which were fun to try.

Day 2

Woodstock

We spent half the day in area of town known as Woodstock, which has an air of fancy bohemian crafts. We went to the Old Biscuit Mill, which takes place every Saturday and is full of stores and stands selling unique and interesting home goods, clothes and trinkets (though not cheaply). There’s also little cafes plus a whole area with food stalls that was absolutely packed with people. The whole thing was crowded actually, probably because it was days before Christmas, but live music and seeing our friends made it a fun spot to spend the morning. I also bought myself a new watch from Bamboo Revolution.

Camps Bay

In the afternoon we paid a quick visit to the beach not far from where we were staying. The place reminds me a lot of the strip in Miami; fancy restaurants, gelato places, techno bars all jostling for space directly across the street from the beach. A fancy and somewhat overwhelming place- but the beach is nice. That evening we had dinner with Tommy and Mars, our Zamfriends, and a few of their friends. We tried a pizza place called Diva that turned out to be really delicious, and not very expensive. There were all sorts of interesting pizzas with specialty ingredients, highly recommend it.

Day 3

Table Mountain Hike

Table is a very hike-able mountain; with more impressive views than Lion’s Head but not quite as demanding as Devil’s Peak. That being said, we underestimated the effort it would require. We used the Platteklip Gorge trail, a popular route running up the middle face of the mountain. It’s very well marked and maintained, but it’s like doing a stair-master for 2 hours, so be prepared. Once on top, we decided to hike across the plateau in search of a very pleasant reservoir I remember visiting on previous hikes back in 2008. The fog of memory proved thick, however, and though we hiked across the plateau for another 1.5 hours we didn’t manage to reach it. In hindsight, the quickest way to reach it is probably by going up the Skeleton Gorge trail, on the back side of the mountain, accessible from the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens.

One thing to be wary of on Table is the rapidly shifting weather. It's common for thick clouds to completely sock in the top without warning  Even if the day is hot, it can get cold, windy and wet up there. By the time we made it back to the front edge there was no view to be had, but as soon as we descended below the cloud line we returned to a lovely sunny day. For dinner that evening we met our friends again, this time at Hudson’s on Kloof St. It’s a burger chain in the city, but a pretty good one with fancy things like bacon jam and blue cheese. They also had delicious oversized milkshakes and many varieties of potato sides. We left full and satisfied.

(From left to right: Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, Lion's Head)

Days 4 & 5

Stellenbosch

One great thing about having a rental car was being able to get out of town. Stellenbosh is wine country, and close enough to reach in time for lunch, which we had at Hartenberg Wine Estate. There are a number of options for picnicking at wineries, but this turned out to be a great one. A basket of delicious foods plus a bottle of wine for a good price, and the setting was really pretty and not crowded at all. After lunch, we visited another two wineries: Beyerskloof (intimate, nice but nothing fancy) and Simonsig (very nice atmosphere and best wines we tried). While in Stellenbosch we stayed at a guest house called Summerwood, which is really amazing. The whole place is really well-designed, has a pool, and includes an awesome breakfast. You could not visit a single winery in Stellenbosch and it’d still be worth the trip if you stayed here. For dinner we tried Helena’s, which is in the quiet downtown area, has a nice on-street patio and a fantastic mushroom risotto.

On our second day, we did another set of wine tastings:
Spier: a big brand, it has a huge estate that’s very beautiful, but attracts lots of people so it's not so intimate. The chocolate and wine pairing was nice.
Warwick: nice estate with a pond which is also a place for picnic lunch, but it’s a little more crowded.
Fairview: has a restaurant, wine tasting, and cheese tasting all on-site. It's a pretty popular place and was quite crowded- think it’s worth just going for a cheese platter. Apparently there’s a place called Spice Route next door which is a better lunch option.

On this night we had the best dinner of our trip, in my opinion, at Makaron. A little fancy and pricey, no more than in the US, but everything really wowed me- what a nice Christmas gift from my parents!

(Summerwood)

Days 6 & 7 (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day)

Cape Town

After a nice, lazy morning at Summerwood, we traveled back to Cape Town where we managed to successfully grocery shop for dinner, despite not realizing how crazy the stores would be that day. We cooked a rack of lamb and had a cozy Christmas Eve at home.

On Christmas Day we exchanged gifts at home from under our little fake Christmas tree and made crepes for breakfast. We then watched The Hobbit at V&A with Tommy and Mars, and cooked a Christmas dinner with them at their place. We were very lucky to share Christmas dinner with friends while being so far from our families.

Day 8

Cape Point

We made the drive down the peninsula to the tip of the continent, making some stops along the way. First was Muizenberg Beach, which was very windy but we were still able to admire the iconic colorful changing houses. Next we went to Simon’s Town, having lunch at a really pleasant place called Lighthouse Café (make a reservation!) and then seeing the famous penguins at Boulders Beach. We made it down to Cape Point national park by the afternoon, visiting the lookout and the beaches. We gave ourselves some time to get back up the west coast so that we could catch sunset just as we were reaching Chapman's Peak Drive, a beautiful scenic stretch of road just before Cape Town. For dinner we went to the Codfather in Camps Bay. Fair warning, they've got a clever deli-style set-up that facilitates expensive dinners. However, the fish was excellent, particularly the tuna.

(Muizenberg Beach)

(African penguin at Boulders)

 (Southern tip of the continent)

(Hout Bay, from Chapman's Peak Drive)

Day 9

When I lived in Cape Town I interned at an economic research institute. On this morning we met my old boss and his wife at a very pleasant place called Sidewalk Café for breakfast. In the evening, we hiked Lion’s Head, which is a very accessible 45 minute hike that’s great for sunset. We had dessert that night with Tommy and Mars at a place just around the corner called Bombay Bicycle Club. It was crowded (make a reservation!) and very hip, but the ice cream cigars we had were delicious.

Day 10

Highlights of this day included awesome sushi (what a treat!) for lunch at Willoughby at the V&A, and a picnic dinner at Kirstenbosch with live music. You can buy tickets for their concert series in advance here. We ended up seeing Hot Water, a South African band with catchy songs and a big stage presence.

Days 11, 12 & 13 (New Year’s Eve)

Garden Route

We wanted to explore more outside the city, so we blocked off a few days to drive part of the Garden Route, which runs all the way from outside Cape Town past Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. We didn’t have time to do the whole thing, but we decided to go halfway at least halfway to where the popular destinations start.

To break up the journey, we overnighted in Oudtshoorn, a little town on the inland route away from the coast. We weren’t there for long but tried to see a bit of the place once we arrived. Unfortunately the olive tour we went to turned out to be just a shop selling olive products. On the plus side, the B&B we stayed at, Earthbound, was very cool; eccentric but still comfortable. Oudtshoorn is known for its ostrich, actually it's the "ostrich capital of the world," so that night we had an all-ostrich meal at Nostalgie, which was cheap and tasty.

The next day we arrived at our destination: Knysna. It’s a holiday spot for South Africans so the town was pretty jammed up. Despite the traffic and some light rain, it was pleasant walking around and grabbing a seafood lunch by the water at 34 Degrees South. There are lots of cool little shops along the waterfront, and we picked up a few things for home before heading to our AirBnB- the Tree Studio. It was a very cool location, a studio house built into the side of a valley below the house belong to the owner (who was very friendly and helpful). We had a great sunset view from our porch, and a gas fireplace, though it was a little too hot to use it. It was a very positive first experience with AirBnB. That night we ate at Prembreys, which, despite an older crowd and comically large chalkboard menus the poor waiters had to cart around, was definitely the best dinner we had on the Garden Route.

 (View from our patio)

The next day we had lunch at a place called East Head Cafe, good food with a nice view, and then explored the town and surrounding areas a bit more. It’s kind of a boring place, but the beaches are nice, especially out a little way to Buffels Bay. We went out for dinner, as it was New Year’s, at a place called Olive Tree, which was decently good but not standout. We made a token attempt at finding some NYE’s activities in town, but it was either too early or too quiet of a place, so we retreated home and enjoyed a nice evening there.

(East Head)

Day 14

On our last full day, we headed back to Cape Town, ringing in 2015 with sausage egg mcmuffins at McDonalds along the way. We drove along the coast this time, which allowed us to meet a friend from Kenya in Hermanus on the way, and also afforded us a pretty spectacular drive along Route 44. We had a lot of time to work with on this trip but I don’t think we could’ve crammed another thing in if we had tried. It was awesome to get back and see the place after 6 years, and felt good to see it really is as stunning and enjoyable a place as I remembered.