Introduction
Cape Town's setting, on the Cape Peninsula, is simply stunning. A rugged tail of land washed by two seaboards and dominated by iconic Table Mountain, the peninsula culminates dramatically at the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve and the sea-pounded cliffs of Cape Point. To really get to grips with Cape Town you need to spend time outdoors: if walking up Table Mountain sounds like hard work, you can always take the cable car – or catch the train down the False Bay coast to claim a piece of the 150km of sandy beach that fringes the peninsula. Inland, there are terrific opportunities for hiking and picnicking in the many gardens and forests.
The heart of the city is an attractive collage of Georgian, Cape Dutch and Victorian architecture, built on the foundations of the slave society that occupied it for the first half of its 350-year existence. Eyed by the Portuguese, Dutch and English in their turn, it became the place where Europe, Asia and Africa met – in markets, alleyways and mosques. Today the city centre is as much of a cultural melting pot as ever, where coloured families from the Cape Flats do their shopping, young whites hang out in hip coffee bars, Muslims pray, street kids loiter on corners, buskers play to passing crowds and Africans converge from across the continent to hawk crafts.
While it's the legislative capital of South Africa, Cape Town is the least African city in the country: less than a quarter of its population are black Africans. The city's unique feature is the Creolized coloured culture, which evolved from the interaction between Europeans and slaves from East Africa and the Far East. Mosques in the Bo-Kaap quarter, adjacent to the city centre, add spice to the colonial streetscape; Cape cuisine combines local ingredients with Eastern flavours; and Cape jazz is heard in the coloured townships of the Cape Flats as well as city-centre clubs. Over fifty percent of Capetonians are coloured, while about 27 percent are white, descended mainly from Dutch and British settlers. To complicate matters, language fails to line up conveniently with ethnicity, and Afrikaans, the city's most widely spoken language, is used by a large proportion of coloureds and many whites. The city's minority African population predominantly speak Xhosa, one of South Africa's nine African languages, but English is the effective lingua franca of the city, and will get you by 99 percent of the time. For more on coloured culture, and the complex dynamics of race in Cape Town, see p.317.
With its cultural variety, high standards of accommodation, smart restaurants, slick clubs, laid-back cafés and vibrant gay scene, Cape Town offers a truly cosmopolitan experience. Most visitors see areas that were classified under apartheid as white and still remain relatively safe and salubrious: radiating out from the city centre, the largely affluent suburbs cling to the slopes of Table Mountain or perch at the edge of the peninsula's two coasts. But for most Capetonians, exiled to the crowded townships and shantytowns on the Cape Flats, the harsh reality is one of sky-high murder rates, taxi wars, racketeering and gang fights. These areas, to the east of the city, should only be visited on a guided tour.
A stone's throw from the centre, the V & A Waterfront is Cape Town's most popular spot for shopping, eating and drinking in a highly picturesque setting among the piers and quays of a working harbour; from here catamarans cut across Table Bay to Robben Island, the notorious site of Nelson Mandela's incarceration. The rocky shore west of the Waterfront is occupied by the gritty inner-city suburbs of Green Point and Sea Point, whose main drag is lined with some of the peninsula's oldest and best restaurants, while their back streets are crammed with backpacker lodges, B&Bs and hotels. Equally good for accommodation, but leafy and salubrious in comparison, the City Bowl suburbs gaze down across the central business district on the matchbox ships in Duncan Dock.
South from Seapoint, a coastal road traces the chilly Atlantic seaboard past some of Cape Town's most expensive suburbs and spectacular beaches at Clifton, Camps Bay and Bakoven. South of Hout Bay, the road merges with the precipitous Chapman's Peak Drive, ten dramatically snaking kilometres of Victorian engineering carved into the western cliffsides of the Table Mountain massif, high above the crashing waves. Across Table Mountain, along its eastern foot, the middle-class southern suburbs stretch down the peninsula as far as Muizenberg. Adjacent to Newlands and Bishop's Court, the exceptionally beautiful Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens creep up the lower slopes, as do the Constantia Winelands a little further south. The Metrorail line, the only viable public transport down the length of the peninsula, cuts through the southern suburbs and continues along the False Bay seaboard, passing through villagey Kalk Bay, with its intact harbour and working fishing community, and Fish Hoek, which has the best bathing beach along the eastern peninsula; trains terminate at the beautiful historic settlement of Simon's Town.
An hour's drive east of the Cape Flats into the Western Cape interior are the beautiful Winelands, where you'll find elegant examples of Cape Dutch architecture, and can sample wonderful wines and excellent restaurants. Heading south along the coast you follow one of the most picturesque routes out of Cape Town to reach Hermanus, the largest settlement on the Whale Coast, and a fabulous spot for shore-based whale- watching.
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When to visit
Cape Town and the Western Cape coastal belt have a Mediterranean climate (contrary to expectations, it's not tropical) and the warm dryish summers are balanced by cool wet winters. Cape Town is a windy city and it can gust throughout the year; although seasons are reasonably well defined, it has a notoriously changeable climate. Come prepared for hot days in winter and cold snaps in summer: pack at least one short-sleeved garment during the cooler months and a jumper and jacket whatever time of year you come.
For sun and swimming, the best time to come is from October to mid-December and mid- January to Easter,when it's light till well into the evening and there's an average of ten hours of sunshine a day. During the Christmas month (mid-December to mid-January), Cape Town becomes congested as the nation takes its annual seaside holiday. On the other hand this is major party time: the annual minstrel carnival and the Mother City Queer Project, a gay extravanganza, are staged during the festive season, while the Summer Sunset Concert season in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens also starts its four-month run in December.
Despite its shorter daylight hours, the autumn period, from April to mid-May, has a lot going for it: the south-easter (see box) has dropped but air temperatures remain pleasantly warm and the light is sharp and bright. For similar reasons the spring month of September can be very agreeable, with the added attraction that following the winter rains the peninsula tends to be at its greenest, with much of the fynbos (see p.98) in flower. Although spells of heavy rain occur in winter (June and July), it tends to be relatively mild, with temperatures rarely falling below 6°C. Glorious sunny days with crisp blue skies are common, and you won't see bare wintry trees either: indigenous vegetation is evergreen and gardens continue to flower. It's in July that the first migrating whales begin to appear along the Cape Peninsula – they stay till the end of November.
The Cape Doctor
The southeaster, the cool summer wind that blows in across False Bay, forms a major obsession for Capetonians. Its fickle moods can singlehandedly determine what kind of day you're going to have, and when it gusts at over 60kph you won't want to be outdoors, let alone on the beach. Conversely, its gentler incarnation as the so-called Cape Doctor brings welcome relief on humid summer days, and lays the famous cloudy tablecloth on top of Table Mountain.
