Cape Town
My first time in Africa and on the heels of my first safari experience up near Kruger National Park, I was super excited to dive into everything this magical city had to offer. I was lucky enough to be traveling with Becky’s family, who are truly adventurous in the same way I am. Our airbnb was in Sea Point, which I would highly recommend. The area is clean, safe, and has long views of the ocean and magnificent sunsets. Cape Town has a significant mountain in the middle of it, Table Mountain. If you are east of the mountain, your sunset is about 1-2 hours earlier than the western side—something to keep in mind when booking a place to stay!
The Sea Point Promenade runs along the coast of Sea Point for about 7km. It’s a well laid out walking/running path and it’s usually super busy with people working out or just going for a stroll. As we soon found out, Cape Town folks are very active! Another plus of our location was our proximity to Saunders’ Rock Beach tidal pool. After our runs along the promenade, we would snag a quick dip in the tidal pool, which is basically a cold plunge when we went in May (their Fall). It was incredible every time, and a lovely cap to a run.
Becky’s mom, Ann, was in town for a conference and had a friend who lived in town. We were lucky enough to be invited over for a South African Braai—which is basically a barbecue. What really struck me was that they had a grill built into the kitchen with its own chimney! That’s what I’m talking about!
Earlier that day we scaled up to the top of Table Mountain. The route we took, the India Venster Trail, was challenging to say the least. What was described by Ann’s friend Kirsty as some light rock scrambling, ended up being full on rock climbing! I was so impressed with everyone for making it up the steep inclines, especially while hanging onto staples and chains drilled into the rocks. Not to mention our last hour was in a thick array of clouds and it was quite wet. All in all, it took us about 3 hours to make it up. Lucky for us, the clouds parted and the views were spectacular. Our way down was a hell of a lot easier, we took the cable car! 3 hours up, 2 minutes down.
From Table Mountain you can also see a dome looking peak called Lion’s Head. This famous hike is simpler than Table Mountain’s many routes to the top, in fact it just has one way up and one way down. It was about 2 hours in total when we hiked up the following morning. There are a few ladders on the Lion’s Head hike, but overall it was very doable, and super fun to get views of the hike we did on Table Mountain the previous day.
We did a few drives out of Cape Town while we were there as well. One to Stellenbosch aka wine country, and one to see the penguins at Boulder’s Beach and to the Cape of Good Hope. Both were fantastic trips. The penguins at Boulder’s Beach in particular were super special. This particular breed of penguin only lives at this one beach, they travel out, but they always come back. It’s just our luck that we get to witness something like that up close.
Of the few dinner restaurants we ate at, my favorite was Kloof Street House. There’s a really exotic style to the decor and each room of the restaurant was different and fun to explore. The food was also excellent! Besides that, our favorite eatery on the trip was Kleinsky’s, a Jewish deli style diner in Sea Point. These bagels and latkes were out of control!! Seriously, this place is so good.
Other notable cafes include Truth Coffee Roasting, which has a funky steampunk interior of metal and pipes + amazing coffee and lunch; and Honest Chocolate Café, which is a chocolate lovers dream. I had such a good time at Honest Chocolate that I went twice! The hot cocoa is out of this world, and we got a bunch of their chocolate bars to take back with us as well. Bonus points to HCC for having gluten free baked goods, the gf vegan banana bread was pure bliss.
We had one big shopping day in Cape Town on our only rainy day. Kloof street was recommended to me as the place to go and it delivered! We found a number of fun locally stocked shops, some that even made their own clothes in the store. Many of the shops also had cafes or bars which we quite enjoyed! I have a great memory of Becky and her sister Jules shopping at a particularly great shop called AKJP Studio while Becky’s brother Evan and Jule’s partner Peter enjoyed an Aperol Spritz! We had a grand time walking down Kloof street, even stumbling on a store that was eerily familiar to me… Duck Duck Goose! Even their logo was similar to ours. It was wild!
After spending a week in Cape Town, I honestly didn’t want to leave. Our final day in town was spent exploring the Kirstenbosch botanical garden, which is home to many trees over 100 years old as well as a plethora of other plants we had never seen before in the US. It was the perfect way to say so long for now to Cape Town! We’ll definitely be back.
Here’s the Google Map of all my favorite places, sorted in categories w/ other small notes. Hope you enjoy and find it useful in your travels.