Cape Town has the most beautiful of settings, wedged between the Atlantic and the flat-topped massif of Table Mountain. Combine that with a Mediterranean climate, a layered colonial and post-apartheid history, and one of the most varied collections of sights in any African city, and you have one of the world's great travel destinations.
Established as a Dutch East India Company supply station in 1652, Cape Town has a rich and often painful history that shows in its architecture and its public space. The Castle of Good Hope is the oldest colonial building in South Africa; the Slave Lodge and the District Six Museum record the cost of that history; the Cape Town City Hall is where Mandela gave his first free speech in 1990. The colourful Bo-Kaap quarter and the leafy Company's Garden are easy walks from the centre.
The V&A Waterfront is the obvious tourist hub, with boats to Robben Island, the Two Oceans Aquarium, and the spectacular Zeitz MOCAA contemporary art museum in a converted grain silo. For wine, Groot Constantia is within the city and the Stellenbosch and Franschhoek wine country is an hour east.
Near Cape Town are some of the country's finest beaches — Camps Bay and Clifton along the glamorous Atlantic Seaboard, Boulders Beach for the resident penguins, and Bloubergstrand for the classic Table Mountain view back across the bay. The whole Southern Peninsula — Kalk Bay, Simon's Town and the Cape of Good Hope — makes a spectacular day's drive.
If you are into hiking, Table Mountain, Lion's Head, Devil's Peak and the Cape Point reserve at the tip of the peninsula offer some of the best urban walking anywhere. Kirstenbosch, on the mountain's eastern flank, is one of the world's great botanical gardens.
