Cape Town Capers
 

Cape Town Capers
January 2019

Cast (it’s the usual one!)
Me: Shaun, 50’s, loves travelling, eating and drinking (not necessarily in that order!)
Alison: 50’s, ditto to the above!

So, here we go again, another year another trip.

We tend to live by the quote “I haven’t been everywhere yet, but it’s on my list”.
We travel a lot for various reasons that I’ve highlighted before but in case you’re new to our reports here’s a quick summary: -

• Travel is our thing – not big houses, cars or designer stuff (we don’t have the body shape!)

• Don’t want to leave travel until retirement – who knows that we’ll be physically able to do it.

• We both work full time and the kids both work full time so little dependency on us

• I lost my Mum and Alison lost her Dad in the last 2-3 years, and it just made us realise how short life is. We want to live life to the fullest!

• We want to maintain BA Gold status and earn Avios – a bit of a head vs. heart conundrum

• We have a couple of blogs / websites that we subscribe to and jump on any bargains that may come up.

• Travel is as much fun as the destination for us, we don’t necessarily need to go direct from A to B in fact we are happiest going indirect to see other places and sights.

Ok, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it’s the way we roll.

We do like to have a trip booked up for the New Year as something to look forward post-Christmas as the early months of the year are normally pretty bleak and it’s a long time until the summer.

We were searching for something suitable when we noticed a BA sale, First Class return to Cape Town at an astonishing price. The cost was quite a bit more than we’d normally pay but neither of us needed much persuading – let’s splurge and go for it! :erm:

We’ve not flown first class before and never been in the Concorde lounge at Heathrow T5 before either so it’s going to be a trip of firsts for us.

Surprisingly for us we are going direct from Heathrow to South Africa, no positioning flights to some far-flung European city this time round.

We decided to travel via Johannesburg on the outbound leg (this is so that we’d get to leave from Terminal 5 at Heathrow thereby getting access to the Concorde Lounge, plus we’d get to fly first class on the A380), then direct from Cape Town to Heathrow on the inbound leg (because we’d then get to fly on a 747 – these are getting towards the end of their lifetime so really we want to travel ahead of the pilot once in our lives).

We booked with a car as well – so we only needed to pay a deposit until 5 weeks beforehand.

PRE-FLIGHT
So, as we are flying First that means we get a number of benefits that we’ve never experienced before. One of these is actually going into the Concorde Room (CCR) at Heathrow T5, another is the ability to pre-book free spa treatments

FLIGHTS

BA0055 Heathrow to Johannesburg Seats 1A and 2A





BA6409 Johannesburg to Cape Town Seats 3A and 3C

BA0058 Cape Town to Heathrow Seats 1A and 1K




We decided to split the stay between central Cape Town and Frankschhoek (in the wine region) and we booked the following hotels:

HOTELS

Taj Cape town

https://taj.tajhotels.com/en-in/taj-cape-town/
Luxury Room. Tower Wing. City View, 40 Sqm. Balcony. King Bed



La Cabrière Country House – Franschhoek

https://lacabriere.co.za/
Middagkrans Mountain View room



ATTRACTIONS – nothing yet booked
It’s going to be a low key and less full on commando style trip but possible things include: -

Cape Point


Robben Island


Cape Penguins at Boulders Beach


Table Mountain


Victoria and Alfreds Waterfront


Wine tram tour in Frankschhoek


Swim with seals

Great trip - what a treat to be going first class.
We’re flying to Cape Town late January (our fifth trip) - we love SA as a winter destination. Our trip this time takes us to Franschhoek for a week, Knysna (1 week), Hermanus (3 nights) and Hout Bay (4 nights).
You’ve probably done your research but it’s best to book Robben Island a few days in advance as it books up quickly and the best restaurants in Franschhoek book up so reservations are advised. Let me know if I can help your planning in any way.

As isual, it sounds fabulous!

Thank you - that would be really helpful! We’ve never been to South Africa before - a couple of restaurant recommendations for Frankschhoek would be great!

Looks amazing. We are considering going to Cape Town next new year for my parents 50th wedding anniversary. Hopefully I can get a bit of inspiration from your trip as I’ve not been before.

Kat

Most of the best restaurants are on the wine estates - the choice is amazing. The standard is so high, mediocre restaurants don’t survive. Some only do lunch.
Our reservations this year are:
Rocca at Dieu Donne estate (dinner) our third visit. The setting is beautiful and you are allocated two tables, the first is on the terrace for sundowners and then you are taken upstairs to your table in the restaurant with same view. Reserve online.
Delaire Graff - lunch on the terrace, probably the best view/setting of all, it’s stunning. On the road between Franschhoek and Stellenbosch- very classy. Reservation by email.
Bon Vivant - dinner. Located in Franschhoek, been twice, great both times. Reserve online.
Leopard’s Leap - lunch only, very informal looking out over the vines. Their sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir at £4.50 a bottle is delicious. Reservation not necessary.
Last year we had lunch at Mont Rochelle (Richard Branson’s place). Nice meal but not as picturesque as others.
Le Lude gets great reviews but never been - close to where you are staying.
Grande Provence always looks good but never managed to eat there yet - on the wine tram route.

Thanks for all the recommendations - off to look through and make some short lists etc.

Really appreciate the help thanks.

Sounds fantastic looking forward to reading along :)

sounds brillant