Cape Town, South Africa Day #1

We arrived at Cape Town to fog and a beautiful rainbow that encircled the city in a light mist that lifted as soon as we docked. This was a harbinger of what we would experience in this absolutely beautiful, vibrant town that has now become our favorite stop on this entire cruise.
If you took Napa Valley, Yosemite, Santa Barbara and Nags Head and put them all surrounding San Francisco then you have what you can experience in Cape Town. It was a truly cosmopolitan city with a tragic but important history of apartheid that has developed into a tolerant, growing city that says a lot about South Africa and the way it came out of the long history of apartheid and is moving forward. That history is very tied up in the history of Nelson Mandela which we learned about on the trip over the Robbin Island where he was incarcerated in the most inhospitable conditions for over 18 of his 27 years in confinement. We took the hop on - hop off bus around the city in the morning and was extremely impressed by the area. Unfortunately the wind was too high to ride the gondola up to the top of Table Mountain. The fog lifted though and we got spectacular views of it all day.Read more