CAPETOWN

7 – 13 JULY 2011

THE MOTHER CITY, CAPE TOWN

Capetown skyline

Soon enough it’s time to head into Cape Town but amazingly enough its very straightforward and we get to our destination without any u turns or wrong turns – this is boding well, methinks. As we park, I begin to explain where we are staying – the Scalabrini Guesthouse. “Not a place I would have picked”, he says especially when the locking system has been explained to us (6 keys in all) and whilst waiting to check in we meet a few of the clients! Scalabrini is an Italian monastic order, providing welfare services to Cape Town’s poor and refugees.  But the room was great, with a lovely view of Table Mountain from our window and facilities were very clean. The location was terrific especially as we had the car and the guesthouse was next door to a security firm making parking on the street reasonably safe.

Great mural in Woodstock

Dinner at Noon Dun Tearoom and Restaurant – a great place with lovely Cape Malay dishes with a long history and a fab view from the top of the Signal Hill in Bo Kaap, 350m high.

FRIDAY: Visited the Castle of Good Hope (1666 – 1679) has a Key handing ceremony still practised with ceremony and the largest bang form the littlest cannon I have ever seen! The fort also housed an excellent exhibition about Cape Town’s New Year Minstrel’s Carnival. Previously known as the Coon Carnival! This display explained its history and current evolution using personal accounts, audiovisual, costumes and parade photography.

I’d arranged to meet up with Chris Westcott (whom I’d met on the Chameleon tour in Namibia) over lunch at the Rhodes Memorial, a HUGE granite tribute to Cecil John Rhodes, an astute mining magnate and former Prime Minister! Obviously erected by the poms, there are fab views over the city, in lovely sunshine at a very popular café.

Don't look down Tez

Heading out of town around the mountain we visited Groot Constantia Wine Estate – ye olde vineyard and a magnificent Cape Dutch manor house with a wine museum, cellar, gardens and lovely sav blanc! Further on we found Tea Bags, a popular initiative creating crafts from painted teabags (I’m sure you could use this idea Monica and Carol!). We were warmly welcomed, watched the dvd charting the history and successes and then struggled to make choices from their wide range of decorative goods. All hail the teabag, we say! Finally arriving at the cable car station to travel all the way up 1086m to Table Top Mountain for the best 360° views of Cape Town (just don’t ask Terry!) and Table Bay. Travelling back down at sunset was a real bonus.

SATURDAY: We check out a very groovy suburban market out at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock followed by a picnic lunch at Kirstenbosch eating our yummy purchases from the market. This is one of the “Seven Magnificant Botanical Gardens of the World”. WHOA And all in glorious sunshine. We returned to the city to try and find Observatory, a suburb recommended to us.

And we're very happy!

Our first attempt the other night failed so we were very pleased with ourselves. Its a student enclave, complete with many cheap bars and eateries, we played a few games of pool with Terry playing very well (misspent youth, I say!).

Archbishop Tutu flying from the chandelier

We dine that night at a fabulous restaurant, 6 Spin, the premises a former bank and then the regal home the Democracy Commission. It also hosts the Lobby Bookshop that concentrates on African politics. We learn about the central sculpture piece and are then kindly shown another commissioned piece in a back room – it’s a life size Desmund Tutu swinging from a chandelier, representing the wishes of people that after campaigning and working towards South Africa’s democracy, followed up by chairing the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, that he should see out his life relaxing and swinging from the chandeliers; great stuff that readily brings a smile to our faces!!

SUNDAY: Robben Island was declared a World Heritage Site, December 1997 and represents a triumph of human spirit. Once home to South Africa’s most famous political prisoners – Nelson Mandela spent twenty six years here. A half hour ferry ride and guided tour of the jail cells and buildings by a former political prisoner. Visiting the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront contains over 500 stores, 80 eateries, 7 hotels, 14 conference venues and 17 cinemas! What more could I possibly add? Except that Terry bought new clothes!

That night we had tickets for Jazzart Dance Theatre, in collaboration with Kwamashu School of Dance theatre, La Rosa Spanish Dance Theatre & Wilvan School of Dance, Cape Academy of Performing Arts, Cafda Youth Dance Company, Sibonelo Dance Project, Relay Productions, Dance for all, iKapa Outreach Project and Vadhini Indian Arts Academy blew audience members away with a rich display of culture and expression. They collaborated to create Danscape, which is performed annually  at ArtsCape theatre. As a springboard for young influential dancers and choreographers, a percentage of ticket sales went towards a selected performer as a commitment to advancing dance throughout the Western Cape – great show..

MONDAY: Table Mountain National Park is actually nowhere near Table mountain, but via via Hout Bay (petrol anyone?), amazing Chapmans Peak Drive to the home of the Cape of Good Hope.

I climbed to the top while Terry watched

Sheer cliffs and placed between two major ocean currents and differing sea temperatures we saw eland, zebra and more Dassies! I climbed up to the Cape of Good Hope itself for speccy views. Then we drove further south to the Cape Point with the Flying Dutchman funicular up to the lighthouse, more than 200m above the sea.

Lovely lunch special at Kalk Bay watching the working fishing port, all in glorious sunshine. We did wonder what the poor people were doing until we remembered that we were them! LOL

TUESDAY: District Six Museum charts the population of the now vanished District Six, prior to the forced evictions in the 1960s. There is a huge map where former residents returned to make their former home locations and many recorded their memories, recipes (food AGAIN) and thoughts on the future District Six being created.

No not Brighten it's Kalk Bay

Picnic lunch at Company’s Gardens, the original vegetable patch for the Dutch East India Company. Right in the heart of town surrounded by magnificent trees and the parliament buildings all in magnificent sunshine. The SA National Gallery had a great photography exhibition from Drum Magazine, edited in Durban over many years charting fashions and local identities, famous and infamous. There was also an exhibition of the Russian artist Vladimir Tretchikoff who made South Africa his home. His painting of Chinese Girl is well known and judging by the exhibition he was certainly a prodigious painter of many subjects if not all to my personal taste!

Capetown Flower Market

The South African Jewish Museum – we were a little taken aback with the brusque welcome we received at the gate but once inside it was fabulously designed (with a huge self-supporting staircase), great displays charting the original emigration of jews to South Africa and their successes. We also got a sneak preview of political cartoonist Jonathon Shapiro’s exhibition, Jiving with Madiba.

FACT: Capetown is South Africa’s first established town, second most populous and largest in land area. It is known affectionately by the nickname ‘The Mother City’ because it's where Dutch explorers founded the first European colony on Africa's southern tip.

We both loved Cape Town and will return I’m sure. A couple of friends have a tour in South Africa later this month and I’m trying to work out a way to get back here for their 4 days R&R! I’d like to walk Lion’s Head, check out a few more museums and the Bo Kaap Islamic quarter.

On Robben Island in jail

That's a THICK door

Vuvuzela anyone?