South Africa: Exploring Cape Town Highlights

While travel remains stalled, we’re here to bring you inspiration for the trips you’ll take when life returns to normal. – TravelSquire Editors

Cape Town is surprisingly small. Using the towering plateau of Table Mountain as a guide, you won’t have any trouble finding your way around. Table Mountain forms one wall of a bowl that encircles the downtown portion of the city. Across from Table Mountain, creating the rest of the ridge, are the dramatic cliffs of Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Head. The center of Cape Town is located at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula and is surrounded by the chilly beauty of the Atlantic Ocean’s arctic waters. Any traveler so inclined would be well-suited to spend an entire visit to Cape Town at one of the several amazing white sand beaches. But beaches are only the beginning of what this gem of a South African city has to offer.

Not far outside Cape Town, endless vineyards boast world-renowned French-style wines, while botanical gardens and wildlife areas are hotspots of biodiversity. For gay travelers, flourishing diversity is not limited to Cape Town’s plant and animal life. South Africa’s 1996 post-apartheid constitution is the first and only of its kind yet to specifically offer protection from discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation, making Cape Town and South Africa, in general (according to some sources), the second-largest gay capital in the world.

Exploring Cape Town Highlights

Whether you prefer to hike Table Mountain or reach the summit by cable car, make getting to the top a priority. When the wind is high—and it often is, especially during the summer months (December-March)—the mountain is closed to the public. For this reason, if the winds are calm in the morning, you should head over to the mountain. The cable car takes about five minutes each way. If you plan to hike, allow yourself at least four hours to go up and return. For the rugged mountaineers out there, drop by the Mountain Club of South Africa to arrange for a guide to lead you in a climb up Table Mountain’s face.

If it’s too windy for Table Mountain, take a walk around Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, or catch a ferry to Robben Island in Table Bay for a tour of the island where Nelson Mandela and others like him were imprisoned for their political beliefs during apartheid.

Later on head into the city for lunch on Long Street, one of Cape Town’s best shopping and dining districts. For a cheap and tasty lunch, try Portuguese-influenced Peri-Peri (hot chile peppers) chicken at Nando’s in this well-loved chain’s motherland, or stop into Royale Eatery for a burger made from any variety of meats and meatless-options, including ostrich.

Long Street offers an array of stylish boutiques, supporting well-known clothing labels alongside local designers. You’re likely to find some treasures at any of the assortment of tiny vintage clothing stores. If you are in the mood to browse the genres of African music, or if you’re searching for African musical instruments, step into the African Music Store on Long Street. Or, better yet, walk up a few blocks to Vibrations Recording Studio. Pop inside and have a look at the recording room and purchase the same CDs, hot off the press.

Take in the Beauty of Cape Point

With so many Cape Town highlights packed into a single day, you won’t have a chance to tour wineries (leave that for a day of its own), but you will enjoy taking a drive out of the city. If you have a good four hours, visit Cape Point, where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean. Otherwise, take a leisurely jaunt into any of Cape Town’s exquisite suburbs.

With daylight waning, you’ll want to take your afternoon snack to a beach, possibly to trendy, cosmopolitan Clifton beach where people-watching is especially impressive with models and bodybuilders sharing one patch of sand. Here you can savor a glass of wine as the sun sinks into the ocean. There are few sights as mesmerizing as a Cape Town sunset, hence the requisite “sundowners” celebrations that take place every evening during the summer.

World-Class Restaurants

Among the Cape Town highlights, the experience of dining is ranked as among the best in the world. Hopefully, you planned ahead and made dinner reservations at one of city’s popular restaurants, perhaps Africa Café, where you are served authentic African food from various regions for a set fee. If it isn’t that restaurant, your memorable meal could come from any of a long list of Cape Town’s world-class restaurants. Make sure to sample at least one dish inspired by the unique fusion of Cape cultures, cuisines that combine local ingredients with elements of cultural influences that have left indelible imprints on the region—Portuguese, Dutch, French, Indian, English, Malaysian, and German.