7 Days in Cape Town

I was lucky enough to stay for a whole week in Cape Town, I gotta admit only five days were really needed but who am I to complain about more time in this amazing city!

First off, the whichever direction you look in the city, you will get an AMAZING view with the city being shadowed by Table Mountain NP inc Table Mountain (obvs!) and Lions Head. I flew in from JoBurg with Kulula, a great budget airline by African Terms! I stayed at the BlueGum guesthouse which is a quaint little place on the highest road of signal hill giving a fab view of the Waterfront, World Cup stadium AND Robben Island!

View from where I was staying at the Bluegum

As soon as you hit the city, I'd definitely recommend going straight to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, it's so modern, with it's waterside restaurants and harbour that it's pretty easy to forget that you're in Africa. The Waterfront is also home to a HUUUUGE shopping centre which is great for picking up some bargains with the current exchange rate going ( £1 = 16ZAR approx June 2014), there's also a taxi rank there but i'd personally phone up 'Sport' taxis who are a great, friendly firm with very good competitive rates.

On the first full day I took a Cape Peninsular tour with 'African Eagles' tour operators as it's not easy nor very safe to get around by yourself. The tour went through Clifton; a modern indy town, full of surfers and young 'out there' people, amazing!

The beautiful Clifton

The next stop was Hout Bay where theres a huge tourist market for souvenirs and it's where you can get a quick boat ride to the Seal Island and unsurprisingly, there's so many seals!!! And I was so lucky enough to see a dolphin- well I saw a dorsal finn but it looked a littttttle bit too small and bouncy for a Great White, I hope, praying. The mid point of the tour was the Cape Peninsular nature reserve, home to Cape Point, the Cape of Good Hope, ostriches and many many baboons! The Cape Point I'd definitely recommend, the sight of the waves hitting the coves are too breathtaking to miss!

After the nature reserve theres a quick stop off at Boulders Bay outside of the small naval town, Simons Town, which is home to the African penguin, also known as Jackass penguins!

Some of the penguins at Boulders Bay

The final stops are Kirstenbosch gardens, which a good if you're into flowers and grass? And then a quick look at Victor Vesta prison where Nelson Mandela stayed, before heading back to Cape Town (me, not Mandela).

 I took another tour with African Eagle to the winelands, it took a group to three separate wine estates; Zevenwacht, Paarl and Franshoek. To me, all the wine tasted the same but I am terrible with this stuff, however for a wine lover, this tour was perfect for them. The tour also stops at Stellenbosch, this has to be one of my favourite towns, it's quiet and full of independent shops.

Multiply that by 3, and that was day! Slightly tipsy by the end!

Day 3, I decided it was definitely time to go stand on Table Mountain, one of the points of my bucket list! As it's quite out of town I got there via the tourist red bus, you know those ones you get in every city around the World?... Well it worked out about £5 for a day ticket which for the prices I pay at home for a single bus fare, is a bargain! And you get free headphones! Before I got to the mountain, I decided to stop off at Green Market Square and Jewel Africa. The market is really good if you need souvenirs, you really can't miss anything there, trust me, it has every souvenir known to Africa. When I stopped at Jewel Africa the employee there recognised my Welsh twag so decided to inform me that the Welsh rugby team was in there literally just 24 hours before- DEVASTED- I love those boys! Anyway, back to the jewelry, the tour of the factory shows you the different cuts of diamond which I found actually really informative and interesting after I thought I couldnt take anymore talks! It also talks about Tanzanite, a mineral stone that is slowly running out- hint, invest guys! The price is going to rocket! So next stop, the Mountain...

Fun fact, the mountain operators transport all the water to the top for the toilets, cafe, plant watering etc via tanks on the cable cars! To get to the top you can either pay a few quid to the top via the cable car with a revolving floor or you can hike. I chose the table car just for the time saved, once up the top you can just take in the view! There's also many different plant species there not found at the bottom which is pretty interesting if botany is your thing, there's also a fair view hyrax's there!

On top of Table Mountain with Lions Head behind me

The next few days I just repeated some things, not a taxi to some more towns in the suburbs and hit the cinema so I wont go into detail, but I hope this gives you all a clear view of this amazing city! I'll hit up another post of my top things to do in Cape Town next. Enjoy!