Travelling Cape Town (City) in Winter

There are a lot of positives when it comes to visiting places off-season as Laura and I discovered recently. If you are happy to accept the possibility of poorer than normal weather and shorter opening hours then almost everything else is an advantage including ease of getting accommodation and lack of crowds. However in the case of weather, it seems this is getting more and more difficult to predict as any tourists in the UK in June would have discovered. Day after day of rain fell in what is supposed to be a summer month.

We knew we would be visiting South Africa in winter and we had been closely monitoring the weather for the last week back in the UK before arriving. The week before had been the coldest that many people had ever remembered and they experienced snow for the first time in decades. Being situated on the Atlantic also means Cape Town's weather is very notoriously unpredictable. However, in our first 2 days we were greeted by clear blue skies, sunshine and unbelievably, temperatures in the mid 20’s celcius (70’s in farenheit).   



half room half view

Our first stop after flying in on Thursday was the Westin Hotel in central Cape Town which is attached to the International Convention Centre and very close to the V & A Waterfront development. Although it lacked 'character' like many chain hotels do, we couldn't fault it in any other way, breakfasts covered off any possible combination you would want to try, the pool/spa on the top floor was great, especially watching life go by through the enormous windows from the jacuzzi and service, impeccable.

After dumping our bags and seeing that the time was 4pm the clear skies and lack of cloud meant we had a window of opportunity to visit the top of Table Mountain, despite being pretty tired. I had previously visited Cape Town in 1999 and remember only having 1 day in 4 that was cloud free. This was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.

In the evening we visited Mitchell's Brewery in the V & A development and had some dinner. The Westin shuttle bus took care of getting there and back. Mitchell's Brewery is highly recommended.

We were blessed again by beautiful weather on the Friday which made our ride on the big red ‘hop on hop off’ tourist bus all the more enjoyable. Seasoned travellers may scoff at the notion of using one of these buses but they need to get over themselves – the buses deliver exactly what you want when you are new in a city without much time. Laura and I have used these buses in other cities including Istanbul and Milan.But first we enjoyed the V & A Waterfront and particularly the man made of crates. 

We actually started the day in the “Two Oceans” Aquarium which is well worth a visit. Strolling straight through with no queues was also very nice. 

Then it was onto the bus. Of the two routes we chose the blue route because it was more scenic and we had visited Table Mountain the night before. We disembarked at the Constantia wine area where we enjoyed a bit of wine tasting. Another stop off was Haut Bay, a picturesque fishing village.

Finally after finishing the bus tour we walked to an area of Cape Town called Bo Kaap which is home to the Malay community and is renowned for its colourful housing. We had missed the museum opening hours but we met some very kind locals and had dinner in one of the restaurants. If you wanted to visit Bo Kaap there are walking tours available. Best place to find more information is the museum. 
And that was our whistle stop Cape Town city trip.

Wine Tasting in Constantia