Cape Town’s must-see sights

Johannesburg is a great city, the economic heartland of South Africa. But it’s New York to Cape Town’s San Francisco. Cape Town is a cross of a Mediterranean coastal resort and a European cultural capital. It has the seas, the mountains, the wine lands, the gourmet restaurants, the quirky hipster bars, the best sushi and seafood, and great nightlife.

With Table Mountain like a flicked-up collar, Cape Town has the confidence and smoothness that George Clooney-esque greying European men have. It has everything. Glorious coastlines, beautiful beaches (and 1-inch freezing cold water in the Atlantic, unless you go to the Muizenberg side, an hour’s drive away, where the warmer Indian Ocean flows passed) and scenic splendour aplenty. Unless you go in winter – where it’s both cold and windy; and rains too.

But summer is splendorous and November to March is a good time to be there. The seas are deep blue, and it’s worth the drive out along the escapement from Clifton to Hout Bay and then on the cliff-hugging Chapman’s Peak to a viewpoint that looks back on Cape Town in all her glory. Visit Robben Island – if the ferry is working.

The Grand | Haul Rd, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8002

The Grand is a chic beach bar with a private beach, masses of seagulls flying by and a fairly good menu if you want to eat. It’s a fun, upmarket place, with tables on the beach. Go late afternoon for sundowners. The snobbish types can be easily avoided because the view is so good.

It’s just near the Waterfront, which is a tourist trap hell and to be avoided at all costs.

Long Street | Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town, 8001

Go drinking in Long Street. Pick a bar, any bar. It’ll do.

Woodstock is the equivalent of New York’s Soho or San Franciso’s Mission. A peri-industrial, working-class suburb that has been gentrified and is now filled with ad agencies, digital cool kids and good restaurants.

Old Biscuit Mill market | 375 Albert Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town, 7915

Great Saturday morning thing to do. Good food, organic “farmer’s market” and lots of craft beer. In Woodstock, which is the cool part of town. Lots of great little stores nearby, selling old stuff or locally-made things.

Woodstock Exchange | Albert Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town, 7915

Woodstock Exchange is one of those converted factory-type spaces filled with one-off shops offering quirky furniture, hand-made leather goods, and small art galleries (mostly stocking unknown and mostly untalented artists; but staffed with earnest art snobs). San Franciscans will feel right at home.

Read more: What about the penguins and other touristy things to do in Cape Town.

The alternative city guide to Cape Town, South Africa – The Guardian

Written by my friend Nechama Brodie:

“Cape Town is often described as being like a European city as if this were something African metropolises should aspire to. In some ways, it is not an entirely inaccurate description. The compact city centre, hemmed in by the harbour and the curve of Table Mountain, Lion’s Head and Signal Hill, is almost entirely walkable. Or, if you prefer, it’s also an easy trip on a MyCiTi bus or a hop-on, hop-off open-top Red Bus.

“The “grachts” – Buitengracht, Heerengracht, Keizersgracht – all sit above what were once freshwater canals, running from the mountain to the sea (gracht is the Dutch word for canal). The early Dutch-era street grid has been overlaid with later Victorian structures, and there are clusters of 20th-century brutal modernist buildings pointing towards the Foreshore (which is built on land reclaimed from the sea).”