Cape Town (South Africa)

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Cape Town is the most popular international tourist destination in South Africa due to its good climate, natural setting, and relatively well-developed infrastructure.

The city has several well-known natural features that attract tourists, most notably Table Mountain, which forms a large part of the Table Mountain National Park and is the back end of the City Bowl. Reaching the top of the mountain can be achieved either by hiking up, or by taking the Table Mountain Cableway. Cape Point is recognised as the dramatic headland at the end of the Cape Peninsula. Many tourists also drive along Chapman's Peak Drive, a narrow road that links Noordhoek with Hout Bay, for the views of the Atlantic Ocean and nearby mountains. It is possible to either drive or hike up Signal Hill for closer views of the City Bowl and Table Mountain.

Cape Town is noted for its architectural heritage, with the highest density of Cape Dutch style buildings in the world. Cape Dutch style, which combines the architectural traditions of the Netherlands, Germany and France, is most visible in Constantia, the old government buildings in the Central Business District, and along Long Street. The Artscape Theatre Centre is the main performing arts venue in Cape Town.

Capetown is located on the extreme south west tip of South Africa, (it is 875 mls SW of Johannesburg, 1,050 mls SW of Durban and 475 mls W of Port Elizabeth. International airport is 12 mls E). It is to the north coast of the "hook" of the Cape of Good Hope, with the Atlantic to the west and False Bay, almost the start of the Indian Ocean, to the East.

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Cape Town offers a dozen or so beaches which are popular with local residents. Due to the city's unique geography, it is possible to visit several different beaches in the same day, each with a different setting and atmosphere. Beaches located on the Atlantic Coast tend to have very cold water from the Benguela current which originates from the Southern Ocean. The water at False Bay beaches is often warmer by up to 10 °C (18 °F). Both coasts are equally popular, although the beaches in affluent Clifton and elsewhere on the Atlantic Coast are better developed with restaurants and cafés, with a particularly vibrant strip of restaurants and bars accessible to the beach at Camps Bay. Boulders Beach near Simon's Town is known for its colony of African penguins. Surfing is popular and the city hosts the Red Bull Big Wave Africa surfing competition every year.

The city has several notable tourist attractions. The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, built on top of part of the docks of the Port of Cape Town, is one of the city's most popular shopping venues, with several hundred shops and the Two Oceans Aquarium. Part of the charm of the V&A, as it is locally known, is that the Port continues to operate and visitors can watch ships enter and leave. The V&A also hosts the Nelson Mandela Gateway, through which ferries depart for Robben Island. It is possible to take a ferry from the V&A to Hout Bay, Simon's Town and the Cape Fur Seal colonies on Seal and Duiker Islands. Several companies offer tours of the Cape Flats, a mostly Coloured township, and Khayelitsha, a mostly black township. An option is to sleep overnight in Cape Town's townships. There are several B&Bs where you can spend a safe and real African night. Other popular tourist spots include the Table Bay harbour, museums and galleries, castle, Parliament building, Tuynhuis (State President's mansion) and Groote Kerk church (oldest in SA); Table Mountain cable car; brewery tours; Robben Island, the maximum-security prison where Nelson Mandela was held; cricket and rugby at Newlands Stadium.

The nightlife offers bars, discos and nightclubs which congregate around the Sea Point area.

For food there is plenty of choice, from local cuisine to European and Malay, and of universally good quality; many restaurants are in hotels. Prices are generally reasonable. Fish and shellfish are specialities.

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Population: 44.344.100
Languages: IsiZulu 23.8%, IsiXhosa 17.6%, Afrikaans 13.3%, Se
Currency: rand
Currency code: ZAR
Local Times:
South Africa - Cape Town

South Africa - Johannesburg

South Africa - Pretoria

Country Dialling Code: +27
Voltage: 220/230V 50Hz
Electrical plugs:
2 parallel circular prongs with an earth connector

2 parallel circular prongs with an earth connector

South Africa lies at the southernmost part of the African continent. It is bordered to the north by Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the northeast by Mozambique and Swaziland and to the northwest by Namibia. On the east coastline lies the Indian Ocean, the Southern coastline the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and Atlantic Ocean on the western side. South Africa completely surrounds Lesotho.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century South Africa was regarded by most of the world as a pariah state where the ruling white minority passed a range of draconian laws to subdue and enslave the black majority. All this changed in 1994 with the release from prison of world-renowned freedom fighter and icon of the oppressed, Nelson Mandela. A new age of democracy was ushered in, and South Africa was suddenly revealed to the world in her beautiful true colours: a rainbow nation with a kaleidoscope of cultures and a host of attractions to enthral and entrance visitors.

A decade later tourists are flocking to sunny South Africa in droves, particularly to the Western Cape with its magnificent scenery, beautiful beaches, majestic mountains and green winelands.

The Republic, at the southern tip of Africa surrounded by ocean on three sides, offers a taste of the African experience with the chance to visit traditional tribal villages, game reserves and sprawling townships. At the same time it also offers the trappings of a first world holiday experience, with luxury hotels, sophisticated shopping, exciting theme parks and clean beaches. Have breakfast in a New York style deli; lunch in an African shebeen; cocktails on a sunset cruise; and dine in style in a fine British colonial restaurant. This is possible in a South African city.

It is not only cultural diversity that makes South Africa magical. The country has a wealth of animal and plant life scattered across its varied climactic zones from desert to snow-covered mountains, forests to grasslands and mangrove swamps. Historically, too, there is plenty to discover, from the fossils of ancient hominids, to the pioneering spirit of the Dutch 'voortrekkers' and the settlement of the Eastern Cape frontier by the British colonialists.

South Africa has been billed as 'a world in one country', and any visitor who has experienced its delights, from the jumble of Johannesburg, the city built on gold mines in the north, to the sophistication of Cape Town in the south, is bound to agree.

Most of South Africa has elevations of over 914m (3,000 ft) and at least 40% of the surface is at an elevation of over 1,220m (4,000 ft). Parts of Johannesburg are 1,829m (6,000 ft) above sea level. Resembling an inverted saucer, the land rises steadily from west to east to the Drakensberg Mountains, the tallest of which is Mont-aux-Sources at 3,300m (10,823 ft).

South Africa is a heady mix of third and first world cultures - along with the best and least crowded beaches in the world. Further inland this country offers a wealth of safari experiences, from verdant subtropical beach forests to the sublime isolation of the desert and the world famous Kruger National Park.