An Afternoon in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town

This is one of my favourite photos of Bo-Kaap – the light reflecting on the pieces of cloth, the clouds falling over Table Mountain and the Bo-Kaap Museum in the middle ground.

Bo-Kaap was the place I most wanted to visit during our whistle-stop visit to Cape Town and we walked over on our first afternoon. I was intrigued by this beautiful place, the most colourful neighbourhood this side of Burano.

Of course, like everywhere in South Africa, there is a story behind the colourful houses of Bo-Kaap. During Apartheid South Africa, Bo-Kaap was known as the Malay Quarter, a primarily Muslim area.

>

Homeownership by non-whites was prohibited under Apartheid and thus houses were leased to families and painted white.

People were finally able to own their homes when Apartheid fell and they painted them in bright colours to exert their individuality and to celebrate their freedom.

>

With doorways like this, it’s little surprise that the neighbourhood is so Instagrammable but Bo-Kaap is an area of significant cultural importance.

For years, Bo-Kaap was at risk of gentrification with trendy businesses and developers moving in to push up the price of properties and force locals out.

In March 2019, residents of Bo-Kaap won heritage status after a four-year fight. The aim is to protect the neighbourhood and make it easier for local resident to retain their homes.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon in December when we visited but I would love to return one day and sample local food and drink.

Read more »

South Africa 2009: Pringle Bay

On 4 April, we went to Pringle Bay to go to my friends Gyda and Kenneth’s wedding.  The ceremony took place on the beach and it was such a beautiful setting.

 

The setting was absolutely stunning and the reception was held in a nearby holiday house overlooking the beach. 

 

The reception was stunning and I have to say – this was the best wedding I have ever been to, apart from my own of course.  The entertainment was a live jazz band and they were brilliant!  Everyone danced the night away and it was just fabulous; Gyda and Kenneth’s families sure know how to dance!  It makes me want to take dancing lessons.  The meal was a lamb on the spit with fresh fruit pavlova for dessert.  I adore Gyda and Kenneth and I am so happy that we took the trip down to Pringle Bay to spend their wedding day with them.

Read more »

South Africa 2009: Kalk Bay

On the morning of the wedding, Stephen and I went for a drive in the car to find somewhere to have a spot of breakfast. We landed up in the quaint little town of Kalk Bay.

Kalk Bay is a bay side town with a railway line running alongside the water. It is surrounded by mountains on the other side. I think I would be very happy living in a beautiful little town like this.

We chose an amazing little restaurant for breakfast. To get to it, you walk under the railway station and land up right by the tidal pools. I spent a moment just looking at the sea and… well… recharged.

The name of the restaurant was the Brass Bell and apart from the food being absolutely amazing, the setting is idyllic too.

Those are surfers you can just about see in the swell there. I wasn’t fortunate to catch any of them surfing but then there weren’t too many good waves that day either. Stephen had the Kalahari Gold breakfast which was the smoked Springbok and I had a poached egg Not So Hungry breakfast.

I had to take a step into the ocean but the water is absolutely freezing here! The icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the warmer waters of the Indian Ocean Ocean officially meet at Cape Agulhas which is further east from Kalk Bay and there is no hint of the warmer waters here!

Many of the buildings in Kalk Bay are of the old Cape Dutch style. The church above was converted into a theatre and I loved how they converted the Artvark art gallery from traditional Cape Dutch into a more modern style.

I would absolutely recommend to everyone now that they take a holiday down to Cape Town one day. There are so many beautiful places to visit but alas, we had so little time. Kalk Bay is an absolute must and it is obvious that I fell in love with the place. Later in the year, I will post the pictures from our visit to the Garden Route (aka our second honeymoon) in 2003. A highly recommended route for tourists is to drive from Cape Town to the Garden Route.

I never though this would happen but as I write these posts about South Africa, I get the first tinges of homesickness in almost two years!

Read more »

A morning at the Rhodes Memorial, Cape Town

Fynbos grows everywhere in Cape Town

I had never been to Cape Town before and I have no idea why not.  I lived in South Africa for 25 years and 2 months and travelled all over the country; I even holidayed in Muizenberg and Hermanus, towns which are a stone’s throw away from Cape Town but I had never been to Cape Town itself.  Well, I fell madly in love with the Mother City within an hour of us landing there and in the car on the way to our host, was already asking Stephen to explain just why we couldn’t move there.

Table Mountain

There is a very good reason a city slicker like me wouldn’t want to move to Cape Town – I thrive on pressure and deadlines and the fast pace of a city life.  Johannesburg wasn’t big enough for me and so we moved to London.  Before we even thought of moving overseas, I used to secretly dream of living my life in a big, anonymous city.  I have that dream now and that is precisely why we can’t move to the city known by South Africans as Slaap Stad (Sleep City, rhymes with the Afrikaans word for the city, Kaap Stad).  Capetonians are laid back and relaxed to the point of inertia and it would drive a city girl like me crazy.

The view from the restaurant at Rhodes Memorial which is at the top of Table Mountain

And so I am back in London reporting on a city that grabbed my heart the minute we landed.  It is so breathtakingly beautiful down there and I wish we had spent longer than 48 hours in this amazing city.  I had heard before that once you visited Cape Town a part of you would never leave; I had no idea how true that was.

I’m posting this a little back to front because these photos are all from Sunday morning, the day we left Cape Town.  So much happened on the Saturday though and I wanted to take that a bit more slowly. 

So, we arrived in Cape Town on the Friday evening and drove to Muizenberg to stay with our kind host Martin that we met through Couch Surfing.  I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out this couch surfing thing in preparation for my trip to New York in June.

We spent an awesome morning in Kalk Bay on Saturday and then drove the 90 minute stretch to get to the wedding in Pringle Bay.  I’ll (hopefully) post about both of those later in the week. 

We saw the most amazing white beaches and green / blue waters I have ever seen in my life on the way to the wedding.  Unfortunately, we were pressed for time and I was unable to stop to take photos.

On Sunday morning, we got up bright and early and said goodbye to our kind host Martin.  We went into Rondebosch for breakfast at Rhodes Memorial.

All too soon it was time to fly back to Johannesburg for the final part of our trip.  Luckily I am posting back-to-front so you still have more Cape photos  look forward to!  We were feeling pretty sad and anticlimactical by this stage!

Wedding photos on Rhodes Memorial

I caught sight of this beautiful bride taking wedding photographs on Rhodes Memorial.  I love the outfits!  I guess this is a Muslim bride, judging from the bridesmaid’s outfits.

The view from Rhodes Memorial

This was the very, very last photo I was able to take before my camera decided it was really and truly out of memory. I’d had a bit of a scare as my friend “walked down the aisle” when it first said I was out of memory!

Read more »