In a city with so many jewels, this is the star attraction. Nestling at the foot of the always-impressive Table Mountain against the shoreline of Table Bay, Cape Town has something to offer everybody. It is a city that has reinvented itself over the past 20 years.
The CBD's renaissance started with the pedestrianisation of St George's Street and there is now a network of leafy malls lined with pavement cafes, with buskers and street traders. While other CBD's started dying in the face of competition from regional malls, Cape Town's gained new life through new and redeveloped apartment complexes -- some of the most trendy anywhere, and associated with all the accompanying night life.
The city also offers a range of experiences -- the cosmopolitan buzz of the Long and Kloof Street precincts, Greenmarket and Heritage Squares; or the heritage of the Company's Garden with Parliament, Iziko Museums, SA National Gallery, SA Jewish Museum & Holocaust Centre, and the Castle of Good Hope (South Africa's oldest building) on the Grand Parade, not far away.
It is a city that safeguards its heritage with scores of historical buildings, museums and precincts. The Gold of Africa Museum in Martin Melck House is just one example. BoKaap is the traditional Malay Quarter characterised by colourful houses and mosques, which can be heard throughout the city bowl calling the faithful to prayer on Fridays and other holy days.
V&A Waterfront
And of course, there is the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront -- where the basins are named after Queen Vicoria and her son, the midshipman Prince Alfred, who visted the Cape in 1860 and again in 1870. He tipped the first load of rubble to start the construction of the breakwater. Redevelopment of the historic waterfront started in 1989 -- click here to read the story.
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