Cape Town, South Africa, Saturday, April 30

Our first day in Cape Town began with a nice breakfast in Hilton's executive lounge.  This is a free perk afforded to us, since we have "diamond" status in the Hilton frequent guest program.  Hardly anyone was in the lounge, which was nice -- at other Hiltons, these lounges can become free for alls! After breakfast, we went to the hotel lobby to meet with the concierge.  We had several questions for him and needed some help in planning activities.  He was very helpful.  He explained how we could rent a car with Hertz for our drive down to the Cape of Good Hope and told us he could arrange a driver for a tour of wine country.  One question we had, though, received a disappointing answer.  We had asked if it were safe to walk around Cape Town after dark, and his answer was "no."  That's too bad.

After our successful meeting, we decided to walk to the Victoria and Alfred (not Albert) Harbor, a main tourist destination in Cape Town.  The original harbor created here was named for Victoria's son Alfred.  At some point, it was decided that it was not large enough, so a second larger harbor was established, and this one was named for Victoria.  Now, the two are just referred to using the combined names.  There was really nothing notable to see on our walk to the harbor, except one nice looking church.  At the harbor, there was a lot of new construction -- very active place -- and we made our way to the central area there.

As with most tourist destinations there are nice shops and lot of harbor-view restaurants.  We stopped to admire an old clock tower that is a landmark.

This is also the place where one could get on a boat to tour Robben Island.  Robben Island is the location of the infamous South African prison, most notable for being the place where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for twenty-seven years.  A tour to the prison is part of many tourists' itineraries in Cape Town, but we had already decided that we would pass.  We were afraid it would be too depressing.  We continued on to cross a pedestrian bridge and then found a nice bench where we could sit and admire the harbor on this lovely, sunny morning.  We stroll around a bit more, venturing into an art gallery to admire some photography and then  decided to have lunch at a seafood restaurant called Harbor House that had pleasant views.  We both ordered cape salmon with vegetables in a orange beurre blanc sauce.  It was delicious!  We had a sauvignon blanc to accompany it.

After lunch we continued our harbor tour.  We took a little detour into a gigantic and very modern shopping mall called the Victoria Mall, supposedly the largest in Africa.  Then we walked to Nobel Square, where there are four statues of South Africa's four Nobel Prize winners.  They are Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.  All four played a part in bringing democracy to South Africa and ending apartheid.  It is a honorable tribute.

Nearby there, we spied another shopping venue called WaterShed.  We went in and saw a lovely variety of shops selling locally produced art items.  We were absolutely taken with a shop selling beaded African figurines in various sizes.  We bought a figure of an African lady decorated with blue beads and small sea shells -- can't resist!

At this point, I was struck with the idea that we might enjoy riding the "hop-on, hop-off" tour bus, which could give us a flavor for the environs of Cape Town (this would be very unusual for us -- we almost always avoid touristy activities like this when we are on vacation).  The station where the tours depart was very close to where we were at WaterShed.  As it turned out, this was a very good idea.  The bus took us through various charming neighborhoods, which were former farms, and then to the base of the famous aerial cableway which transport passengers to the top of Table Mountain.  Table Mountain is Cape Town's most impressive geological feature as it towers over the entire city.  Normally, we would want to ride the cableway, but today, we admired the spectacular view that we had here at the base and decided that higher view might not be any better.  Plus, we could see that there was a pretty long line to get only the cableway.  We decided to pass and continue on with our bus ride.

The bus routed continued on to the west side of Cape Town (the other side of Table Mountain), where there are truly charming beach-side communities, most especially Camp's Bay.  Since today was Saturday, the beaches were very popular.  It was about 79 degrees and sunny.  If we ever come back to Cape Town, I want to stay at the Bay Hotel, here in Camp's Bay.  It looks great!

The route continued to follow the shore north, then curved back to the east at the top of the peninsula, eventually returning to the harbor.  We saw other nice residential areas and also the giant soccer stadium that was built for when South Africa hosted the World Cup.  After the tour, we walked back to our hotel along Long Street in central Cape Town.  Our appetites are not so great this evening after our large lunch, so our dinner consisted of some snacks in the hotel's executive lounge.  Again it was not very crowded.