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City Overview Affectionately nicknamed the Mother City, Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. This is almost completely due to its stunning location, tucked into the arms of a broad bay, surrounded by wild, white sand beaches and set against the stunning canvass of Table Mountain. The city is the epicentre of South Africa’s Western Cape region and the seat of South Africa’s parliament. Originally home to the nomadic Khoikhoi people – related to the San (bushmen) – for at least 30,000 years, the Cape Peninsula was first settled, on 6 April 1652, by Dutch sailors led by Jan van Riebeek of the Dutch East India Company. However, this was not the first brush with European visitors that this region experienced – Portuguese explorer Bartholemew Diaz discovered the Cape in 1488, christening it Cabo Tormentoso or ‘Cape of Storms’. However, it was given the more complimentary moniker of ‘Cape of Good Hope’ by Portugal’s King John II. In 1795, it became a British colony, when the formidable British Empire extended her borders. The city has been the first port of call for many a European settler, entrepreneur and religious refugee, as well as for Indian, Madagascan and South East Asian slaves. All these people are interspersed with the local Khoi and Xhosa population, so the city has become a virtual melting pot of cultures, religions, styles and flavours. Traders from other African countries – such as Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Nigeria – also favour Cape Town, particularly because there are so many tourists there. For this reason and somewhat paradoxically, Cape Town has one of the most distinctive identities – that of strong diversity, audacity and open-minded benevolence – of all the South African cities, which is further characterised by the laid-back attitude of her inhabitants. Capetonians are fiercely proud of their easygoing image, openly laughing at their more frenetic fellow South Africans from the north and shrugging off admonitions of being afflicted by what has widely become known as the ‘Cape coma’. There is a polyglot of languages spoken on the streets, where markets and stalls selling all manner of curios, crafts, food and textiles are squashed among American-style malls, boutiques selling the latest European fashions, art galleries, luxury hotels, backpacker lodges and the ubiquitous chains. The world has not been slow in discovering Cape Town, even if Cape Town can be a tad slow in discovering the world (for example, the often sloppy standard of service in the city). In summer, it is difficult to escape the glitz of the international media, whether film crews, fashion shoots, music videos or commercials, lured by great foreign exchange rates, exotic locations, a world-class infrastructure and seemingly endless supply of drop-dead gorgeous models and extras. Although the city is undeniably one that is on the up and up, Cape Town is, however, still surrounded by the ever-visible legacy of apartheid. The first impression for every visitor coming from the airport is a sprawling sea of shanty towns, or ‘townships’, a hangover from the days of the notorious Group Areas Act, which reserved the prime city land, including the best of the beaches, for whites only. At the foot of Table Mountain, the area known as District Six (once populated by the local mixed-race community known as ‘coloured’) is still a ghost town, an undeveloped space where the buildings were bulldozed, leaving only lonely churches as a reminder of the community that once thrived here. The inhabitants were moved to the bleak and windswept Cape Flats, which has become notorious as the gangland of disaffected Cape Town youth. Even today, relatively few non-whites live in the more upmarket suburbs, although, as the economic situation slowly changes, some of the former townships are gradually turning into middle-class estates. However, the beauty spreads out from Cape Town. To the south, the impeccable beaches of the Cape Peninsula are fringed with pretty little colonial towns and opulent beachside mansions, tipped by the expanse of beautiful national park at Cape Point. To the east lies the mysterious magnificence of the Overberg, the rolling plains, deserted beaches and lofty mountains of the Southern Cape. To the north and northwest, the misty and severe splendour of the West Coast, the austere wilderness of the Cedarberg and the verdant valley of Ceres await the traveller. The Boland, less than an hour’s drive from the city centre, offers up some of the finest New World wines, most of them produced on small ‘boutique’ estates near picture-book villages, such as Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. Many a visitor makes the mistake of thinking Cape Town is best during the peak summer months – December to February. The city is in fact delightful all year round. Although summer promises long, hot and heady beach days and balmy outdoor evenings, sweltering and overcrowded is another way of describing it. The strong ‘southeaster’ wind is also legendary in Cape Town during the summer months. Spring (August to September) brings blooms of flowers, while autumn (March to April) promises a golden haze of warm days. Winter (May to July), although wet and often very cold, is interspersed with weeks that are both warm and clear. During these winter months, when Cape Town is free of tourists and wonderfully green, dolphins and whales migrate, stopping in the myriad small bays that dot the rugged Cape Peninsula coastline. The waterfalls, which streak silver paths down the mountains, are the most spectacular sight of this ‘secret season’. |
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