Return to Cape Town

Elizabeth and I visited Cape Town way back in 1999 and absolutely loved it, so we were looking forward to our return and wondering if the city would live up to our memories. Spoiler alert: it did. The day was absolutely gorgeous, with clear skies and little wind. We had to get the boys up early for face-to-face immigration proceedings with South African officials. They did great, and we got through the process without much of a wait. We had time to grab a quick breakfast before heading out to visit Table Mountain. There was an excellent view of Table Mountain from the Terrace Café, with just enough cloud to spill over the top.

Our excursion for the day was billed as Table Mountain and City Tour, which we were taking mainly to get ourselves up the mountain. We bussed over and got in line for the trip to the top. The wait for the cable car was over an hour, but we passed it chatting with a couple we’d not yet met on the ship. Once on board DJ conquered his fear of heights and was able to enjoy the view from the rotating floor of the cable car. We had about an hour to explore the top, so we walked around, absorbing the various views before heading back down. The excursion was supposed to include a bit of a city tour, but the long queue meant we did not have enough time for that, so it was direct back to the ship.

We had lunch, then walked over to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. We’d visited this on our first trip to Cape Town, but it has grown much larger since then. And it was bustling, even on a Monday afternoon, which was great to see. You really root for these African countries, but many have trouble getting their economies on track and struggle with the corrupt systems left behind in the wake of colonialism. At least this area was thriving. We wandered around for a couple hours and had some very nice gelato.

Dinner was at the Terrace Café, where we watched the clouds falling over the top of Table Mountain. Liz and I both felt like we could watch for hours. Even though we had plenty of steps, mostly from walking around the waterfront, we did some laps on the track and watched the sun set behind Signal Hill. It was a glorious day.もっと詳しく