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The sea got rougher the next couple of days; the program continued and sort of daily routine developed: get up after the captain’s 9 o’clock announcement,breakfast,lectures, lunch around one, a bit of reading, an hour in the gym, another hour … Continue reading
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Based on the cruise itinerary we now had four days of Relaxation at Sea before calling at Tristan da Cunha. The program on board had kicked of – starting with the introduction of the expedition team, the first lectures and the … Continue reading
My first activity – even before unpacking (simply because my luggage had not arrived at my cabin yet) – was “Tea Time” … a nice tea on the deck, watching table mountain and the loading of the ship.
Once I had my luggage, I started unpacking – only disturbed by the safety briefing and sea rescue exercise. The same was quickly followed by immigration and being stamped out of South Africa.
The ship nevertheless still was not cleared; we had dinner (and a first taste of what superb food was ahead of us) in the port. We only left Cape Town after a number of drinks (for me mostly with cucumber) and well after the midnight snack.
We concluded the city tour with a stop at the V&A Waterfront; here we also had lunch, before being transferred to the ship – MV Hanseatic.
At the port a committee was waiting for us handing out sparkling wine to welcome us. After luggage identification, we were finally allowed to board the ship … I probably had been the first passenger in a while to board the ship in flip-flops 😉 .
The next day included a quick city tour, before finally getting to the ship in the later afternoon.
The city tour itself seemed a bit odd with some more questionable stops, nevertheless for me it was nicely complementing my tour, as it stopped at places, I did not really get the chance to have a look at on Monday.
We first left the buses at the Castle of Good Hope to witness the daily key ceremony and firing of the canon, we also had some (very limited) time to check out the castle. From here we continued downtown to visit the cathedral, have a walk through Company Gardens (with a high focus on botanics … (:| ) and finally end up in the South African Museum to see the exhibition on whales.
Getting back to the hotel from Robben Island was the point in time, when I changed from being an individual to an organized group traveler – the pre-cruise program was about to start.
The rest of the group had only arrived earlier this day; I met the remaining folks in the hotel lobby in the late afternoon … and was given access to one of the three (!!) buses (but only after I had been clearly identified as a pax).
We made the way up to the cable car station and then up Table Mountain. The experience today was completely different – no clouds and perfect visibility. After the trip up table mountain, we circled back to town going by the beaches of Camp’s Bay and Clifton.
I left the hostel this morning and made my way to the hotel, which came as part of my cruise package. After checking in, I made my way back to the V&A Waterfront and the Robben Island Gateway to catch a boat to Robben Island.
Robben Island used to be the prison and labor camp for non-white political prisoners during the apartheid regime. Today the island is preserved as a museum and memorial. Tours start with a half hour boat trip to the island, include a bus tour around the island and a walk around the prison, led by a former inmate.
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Over the past couple of days I had somewhat ignored Cape Town’s major landmark – Table Mountain … today I put myself on a one of these hop-on/off city tours and did a tour around town, checking the main landmarks … Continue reading
Its wines are another thing South Africa’s cape region is famous for; so I had to include a wine day tour in my itinerary.
I was picked up in the morning by the tour company – and in a small group (just four plus tour leader) we made it into wine country, with the first tasting already well before 10:00 at the Fairview Wine Estate … the tasting included both wine and goat cheese, which made a nice combination 😉
From here we continued to Stellenbosch and after a short tour around town, we stopped at another winery to try more wine … and to realize how well biltong (South African cured meat) combines with red wine.
Our next stop was at the Blauwklippen winery and its Sunday market, where we had lunch and time to look around the market – before we finally went for another tasting. The next and final winery – after a short stop at a strawberry farm – was the one owned by sock producer Peter Falke – and clearly showed that producing high quality socks and high quality wine is not a conflict – this time wine was accompanied by chocolate.
All in all a very enjoyable (and intoxicating) day with plenty of insight into South African wine making.
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I decided to follow a more active approach for my trip to the Cape of good Hope, so booked myself into a more alternative “hiking & biking” tour. We kicked it off in Cape Town, followed the scenic road along … Continue reading