Cape Town (South Africa): 5 Nights

June 2022

I considered going to Cape Town from Johannesburg by train. It would’ve been a 938 mile journey in 26 hours, which in itself didn’t sound too bad to me, but that meant cutting our time in Cape Town to only 3 days. The idea of train travel came to me from my own uneducated preconception formed by old movies about colonial Africa where women in flowing white dresses and white wide beamed hats took long train journeys to reunite with their men. In other words, I didn’t know much about South African reality. Anyway, we flew for 2 hours ($60) instead.

The pick up service arranged through gettransfer.com was seamless, and, they offered a good daily rate (about $250 – 350, depending on how far out of the city we went, for a ride with an English speaking guide/driver for 8 hours in a 12 passenger van) for whenever we needed for rest of our stay.

Our home was provided by Airbnb, a 7 bedroom/7 bathroom house ($350/night, off-peak) overlooking Camps Bay, a beach town filled with big, fancy houses. The sunset view right out our living room window was simply incredible each and every evening. The main drag where tons of restaurants and markets were located was a 15 minute downhill walk from the house. Cabs were happy to bring us back home for $1 – 2.

The dark brown symbols show where we’ve been, the others are possible points of interest

We were to have 4 full days in Cape Town, thus, I had to figure out the best way to fit in all the interesting places without tiring ourselves to death. We would see the town on the first and the 4th day, go to the Cape of Good Hope on the second day, and visit some wineries on the third day.

The Hop-On-Hop-Off bus was relatively cheap (about US $15) in Cape Town, and there was a stop (#8) right down the hill from us. The recorded guide on the bus was quite informative, weaving in the history of Apartheid and diamond mining in the narrative, and the bus routes covered the city nicely. We got off the bus in downtown (stop #5) to have lunch and get the feeling of the city center. The city seemed to be waking up very slowly, and most restaurants were not even open when we were there around noon. We ended up eating at a small food court with various ethnic food stalls in it.

Old colonial buildings were there with new high rises mixed in. Cape town (population: 4.6 million) is the legislative capital, one of 3 capitals of South Africa.

We got back on the bus and headed to the highlight of the day: the Table Mountain Cable Car ($20 – 23 R/T). One can’t talk about Cape Town without talking about this flat topped mountain that is supposed to be the most photographed site in the country. The view from the top was breathtaking. Yes, it was worth every penny we paid!

We came home from there, but some others in our group did all 3 routes on the HoHo Bus. It was a nice introduction to the city for sure. Let’s have some sea food, we all agreed on the dinner menu.

We walked down the hill to Codfather. Pick your fish, tell them the size you want and the cooking method. I made a mistake of just picking one fish, small size and grilled. It was so fresh and delicious and cost only about $4. I wanted more but didn’t feel like going through the process again since there was a long line. I envied those who had an assortment of sea food on their plate and had gotten away with paying about $15 – 20..

The Cape of Good Hope and the winery tour will have their own write ups.

On the second full day in Cape Town, I chose to do an art museum and a fancy lunch. Some people went hiking up the Lion’s Head, some just relaxed by the pool in the house or stayed in Camps Bay. Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa ($13) was supposed to be the world’s largest museum dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, and its architecture was as interesting as the collections.

I wanted to try a prix fixe lunch at Fyn that I had read about. No luck. It was closed for lunch that day. I asked a sous chef who was there to prepare for dinner whether she could recommend a similar restaurant & she came up with the Waterside.

Four of us ended up paying over $200 with marvelously creative and delicious drinks and tips. We could not have gotten away without paying at least twice as much in the U.S. We walked around the water front shopping area just to walk off some calories. Popular especially among young locals, there were lots of restaurants and shops to browse in,

We rushed to the next destination when we finally realized how late it got, but the Bo-Kaap Museum was already closed by the time we arrived. Bo-Kaap is a multi-ethnic historic area that is famous for the colorful houses and the cobblestone roads. Learning a bit in depth about the area from the museum could have been interesting, but, the colorful houses themselves were not as spectacular as at some other places such as Guanajuato, Mexico.

Our flight out on the last day of the trip was in early evening, so we had almost a whole day to explore more. We all packed up, checked out of the house, piled into the van around 10 in the morning & headed over to an art museum a bit out of the way from the center..

Noval Foundation (admission: around $12) was a truly impressive art complex with a gallery, a sculpture garden, a library, an outdoor amphitheater, and a restaurant. This is another example of money well spent by those who’ve earned a whole hip of money: this case a real estate tycoon, Luis Norval.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden (admission: around $12) was our last stop in Cape Town, and, it almost qualified as a case of “best for the last” except I can’t really say there is only one “best” in Cape Town area. We had lunch in one of the restaurants on site, and the quality/price of food was quite satisfactory.

It was not hard to see why this was considered one of the best botanical gardens in the world. Unlike many of the top gardens, though, people were allowed to just sit around and picnic or take a nap, and many actually did just that. We lingered as long as we could till close to our flight time since the location was on the way to the airport. Their gift shop was huge – had everything you could imagine related to gardening – and not too outrageously expensive.

5 nights/4 full days in Cape Town was enough to see the major sites, it seems. But our house in Camps Bay was the kind of place that triggers a desire to just hang out and be lazy for days. It will be fun to play a local for a couple of weeks there if an opportunity arises.

itinerary: Johannesburg -> Safari -> Victoria Falls -> Cape Town -> Cape of Good Hope -> Franschhoek -> Cape Town