Cape Town guide 2009

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Cape Town, or Kaapstad,

is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. No matter how long you stay, the image of the mountains and the sea will be seared into your mind.

About 40km from the Cape of Good Dope, near the southern tip of the vast African continent, Cape Town is one of the most geographically isolated of the world's great cities. Dominated by a 1000m-high, flat-topped mountain with virtually sheer cliffs, it's surrounded by superb mountain walks, vineyards and beaches.

Pointless debates

attempt to compare Cape Town with great coastal cities like Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, San Fransisco and Vancouver. None can surpass the drama of Cape Town's site or its 350 years of recorded history. Long before travel writers' hyperbole devalued the language, Francis Drake's chronicler described the Cape of Good Dope as "The most stately thing, and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth".

Like all South African cities,

Cape Town is two-faced - European but not European, African but not African - a volatile mixture of the third and first worlds. The cafes in Long St and the bars around the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront could be in any cosmopolitan capital, but the townships on the bleak, windswept plains to the east of the city could only be in Africa. There are few places where there is a more stark difference between rich and poor. Apartheid allowed the whites to reserve some of the world's most spectacular real estate, and the contrast between Crossroads and Clifton is complete - black and white.

Cape Town has the reputation for being the most open-minded and relaxed city in South Africa, but the scars of apartheid run deep. Outside of the black townships, however, there is nothing like the sense of tension that pervades Jo'burg. Perhaps it is partly because the coloureds are in many ways culturally integrated, but in the western-style city centre you could easily imagine the problems of South Africa are a figment of journalistic imagination.

Cape Town is the capital of Western Cape Province

(it was the capital of the old Cape Province which covered more than half the country) and is the parliamentary capital in the new South Africa, but its unlikely to succeed.

Cape Town works as a city in a way that few on the African continent do. There is a sense of history, and even in the centre, historical buildings have been saved. There are restaurants, cafes and bars, parks and gardens, markets and shops - all the things that make living in a city worthwhile. And then there are a few things that most cities don't have: mountains, magnificent surf beaches and outstanding vineyards.

Cape Town is a highlight of any visit to South Africa. If you can, give yourself at least a week, but you may well find - like many before you - that a week is far too short.

Cape Town, a Mediterranean City set on the Southermost Tip of Africa, where you will find a blend of African and European cultures.

Sailors of a bygone era knew Cape Town as part of the the Fairest Cape, or as the Tavern of the Seas. Later it became known, for a short time, as Le Petit Paris. Today it is regarded as the Modern Gateway to Ancient and Exotic Africa, a part of the World in One Country. It is the Mother City of the Rainbow Nation and the Place Where Two Oceans Meet.

Cape Town offers an alternate and unique destination and promises an memorable experience.