CAPE
TOWN is
beautiful,
romantic
and most
visited
city. The mountainous
Cape Peninsula
spine slides into the Atlantic Ocean.
The most famous
attraction is Table Mountain, frequently shrouded by clouds
which
resemble a
table
cloth.
Table Mountain
divides the city into distinct zones with
wilderness,
forests,
hiking
routes,
vineyards public gardens, and
sought
after
residential
areas
draping
down its lower slopes.
Standing on the
mountaintop,
you can
look north
for a dizzy view of the city centre, its docks lined with ships.
Looking
west, beyond the mountainous
Twelve Apostles, the drop is
steep and your eyes
will sweep
across
Africa's
most
expensive real estate,
pinned to
the slopes
along the
cold but
incredibly beautiful
Atlantic
Seaboard.
Turning
south, the mountainside
is densely
forested
and several
historic
vineyards
and
Botanical
Gardens
claw up the lower slopes.
Images of oak-lined
suburbs of Newlands and Constantia
fall on you
retina.
Cast your
eyes
further, the warmer
False Bay
Seaboard
is in focus,
which curves around towards
Cape Point.
Finally,
turn and
look east,
a sharp
contrasting
mosaic
image
reflects
industrialisation,
townships
and ghettos.
To appreciate Cape Town you need to
hike,
picnick or
sunbathe,
or choose
mountain bikes in
preference to cars.
Sailboarders head for Table Bay
for some of the
world's best
windsurfing, and the brave jump off
Lion's Head
and paraglide down close to the
Clifton beachfront. But the
city offers
sedate pleasures as well, along its hundreds of paths and
150km of beaches.
Cape Town's
Diverse
Architecture : an indigenous
Cape Dutch style, rooted in the Netherlands
predominates in the
Constantia wine estates, which were
taken to new heights by
French refugees in the seventeenth century; Muslim
slaves, freed in the nineteenth century, added their
minarets
to the
landscape; and the English, who invaded and freed these slaves, introduced
Georgian and Victorian
buildings.
Bo-Kaap
reflects
twentieth
century
architecture.
The City
The City Bowl
is made up of the Upper and Lower
City Centres
and the Waterfront,
where
vibrant areas, such as
Long Street, the Bo-Kaap
and Gardens
interface with the serious new wealth of
Tamboerskloof
and
Oranjezicht.
Moving south from the
city centre,
the southern suburbs become progressively more
affluent as you move from
Observatory through the comfortably
middle-class districts of
Rondebosch and
Newlands, culminating with the
Constantia wine estates.
The Atlantic
Seaboard
is
drier and sunnier, with the wealthiest areas like
Clifton and Camps Bay
clinging to the mountainside above the sea, white sands and rocky beaches.
The
False Bay
Coast is
greener and
wetter; the
surf is several
degrees warmer than the western peninsula, making
Muizenberg, Fish Hoek and
Boulders Beach in Simon's Town the most popular bathing beaches in Cape
Town.
Meandering northeast around
Table Bay,
the
northern
suburbs of
Parow, Milnerton and Bloubergstrand, with a
traditional Afrikaans
ethos.
Extending along the
major
arterial N2 into the interior, the coloured
Cape Flats
townships
compete
with the African ghettos of
Nyanga, Langa and
Guguletu, which
sadly
stretch for kilometre after kilometre of
wood, iron and cardboard
dwellings.
SEE also Johannesburg,
Pretoria, Knysna here...
For maps of the cities, check:
www.brabysmaps.co.za/brabys/
www.easymaps.co.za
