With its stunning location, tucked into the arms of a broad bay, surrounded by wild, white-sand beaches and set against the canvas of Table Mountain, Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Affectionately nicknamed the Mother City, it is the capital of South Africa’s Western Cape Province and the seat of South Africa’s parliament.
Originally home to the nomadic Khoi people 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. Portuguese explorer Bartholemew Diaz had already discovered the Cape in 1488 and christened it Cabo Tormentoso (Cape of Storms), but Portugal’s King John II later renamed it ‘Cape of Good Hope’ in reference to the opening of the sea route to India and the east via southern Africa.
In 1795, it became a British colony, when the British Empire extended its 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 interspersed with the local Khoi and Xhosa population and the city became a melting pot of cultures, religions, styles and flavours.
Nowadays, traders from other African countries (such as Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Nigeria) also favour Cape Town, particularly because there are so many tourists there. The city has a reputation for being the least xenophobic and most welcoming city in South Africa, with a strong diversity and open-minded benevolence. Capetonians are proud of their easygoing and laid-back nature, jokingly known as the ‘Cape coma’, so different from their more frenetic counterparts in the north.
On the streets, a great variety of languages are spoken, while stalls selling all manner of crafts, food and textiles are squashed among American-style malls, European fashion boutiques, art galleries, luxury hotels, backpacker lodges and the ubiquitous chain stores. In summer, it’s difficult to escape the glitz of the international media. Film crews, fashion shoots, music videos and commercials, are lured to the city by great foreign exchange rates, exotic locations, a world-class infrastructure and seemingly endless supply of drop-dead gorgeous models and extras.
Although Cape Town is undeniably on the up and up, it is still surrounded by the ever-visible legacy of apartheid. The first glimpse of the city coming from the airport is of shanty towns or ‘townships’ that ring False Bay; a hangover from the days of the notorious Group Areas Act, which reserved the prime land in the middle of the city 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 ‘Cape coloureds’), now renamed Zonnebloem, was razed to the ground in the 1960s and its residents were forcibly removed to the bleak and windswept Cape Flats, which has become notorious as the gangland of disaffected Cape Town youth. District Six is somewhat of a ghost town, although housing development is being planned.
Even today, relatively few non-whites live in the more upmarket suburbs, although some of the former townships are gradually turning into middle-class estates, and construction of large areas of low cost housing is underway as the economic situation improves.
Nevertheless, natural beauty spreads out from Cape Town. To the south, the impeccable beaches of the Cape Peninsula are fringed with pretty towns and mansions ending in the southern reaches of the beautiful Table Mountain National Park (formerly the Cape Point nature reserve). To the east lies the mysterious magnificence of the Overberg, where there are rolling plains, deserted beaches and the 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.
Many visitors think that Cape Town is best during the peak summer months (December to February) but it is attractive all year round. Summer brings long, hot beach days and balmy outdoor evenings, but they could also be described as sweltering and overcrowded and there is the chance of the legendary strong ‘southeaster’ wind. Spring (September to November) brings blooms of flowers, while autumn (March to May) promises a golden haze of warm days.
Winter (June to August), although wet and often cold, is interspersed with weeks that are both warm and clear. The city is free of tourists and wonderfully green; dolphins and whales stop in the many small bays along the coastline, and the most spectacular sight of this ‘secret season’ - the waterfalls streak silver paths down the mountains.