S Africa Day 5: Wine Country

Finally feeling somewhat rested, we left Cliff House in the morning. We were driving to the winelands, specifically Franschoek, spending the day there, and then heading on to Capetown for several days. Driving in S Africa is quite easy once you get used to the steering wheel on the right and driving on the left. The roads are well-marked and well-paved. It was a beautiful drive and we stopped at an overlook above the town of Franschoek.

Although the surroundings were beautiful, the town itself was crawling with tourists. There was slow traffic, difficult parking, and crowded restaurants. I was starving, however, so we stopped off for lunch before our wine tasting.

The wine tasting we chose was a vineyard just outside of town called Rickety Bridge. A beautiful setting, amongst the mountains, where we sat on the porch and tasted five different wines.

They had a red that was our favorite and we ordered a case to be shipped home (which we later split with our friends who took care of the dogs for the three weeks we were gone). It was getting late in the afternoon and we wanted to reach Capetown without a lot of traffic. We arrived in Capetown about an hour later and made our way to the wharf area to our apartment at Lawhill Luxury Apartments. We had a beautiful, two-bedroom apartment with a balcony overlooking the water. I loved the artwork and tried to figure out how I could smuggle the wild dog picture back to the US.

This is the One and Only Hotel where would go for a nightcap at the bar before heading home each night.

The view from the parking lot was of cloud-covered Table Mountain.

We wanted to explore the wharf before it got dark so we freshened up and walked around the area to find dinner as well. These locks were just down from the apartment and are used to adjust the water level as boats enter and exit the marina. We caught a small boat exiting as we were passing by.

We walked around the wharf a bit, just checking things out and getting the lay of the land.

We settled on a tapas place for dinner and sat upstairs on the deck so that we could people and boat watch.

After dinner, we stopped off at the One and Only for some of my favorite Havana Club rum then collapsed into bed in anticipation of a few busy days ahead.