On April 11th and April 12th, 2011 we visited Cape Town, South Africa. Many people call Cape Town one of the world’s most beautiful and livable cities. There are three capital cities in South Africa: Cape Town is the legislative capital, Bloemfontein is the judicial capital, and Pretoria is the administrative capital.
On our arrival we elected to take the CitySightSeeing Cape Town Red Hop On-Hop Off tour bus. Of course we selected the open top deck of the double decker for better viewing and photography. We caught the bus outside of the Two Oceans Aquarium, just a few blocks from our pier. Our goal was to get to the Table Mountain Cable Car and see some of the city. Here is a list of our stops on the Red Line: Two Oceans Aquarium, The Clocktower, Cape Town Convention Centre, Cape Town Tourism Building, St George’s Cathedral, South African Museum, Mount Nelson Hotel, South Africa Jewish Museum, District Six Museum, Castle of Good Hope, Gold Museum, Jewel Africa, Table Mountain Cable Car, Camps Bay, Presidential Hotel, St. John’s Road, Winchester Mansions Hotel, and return to the Aquarium. We got off the bus at Table Mountain and took the cable car up 1085 meters to the top. What a great view of the city and harbor from on top. The ride up is very fast and the cable cars are very modern and rotate so everyone gets a good view. Each car holds 65 people and they transport 800 people per hour. After about 1 ½ hours on top, it was back down the mountain and back on the Red Line. This is a great way to see the city. They also have a Blue Line that covers more of the city. We also enjoyed an amazing lunch of fish and chips.
On our second day in Cape Town we selected a Princess Tour that went to the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point, Table Mountain National Park Boulders (a penguin sanctuary) and a tour along both the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean coastlines. During this tour we had a wonderful lunch of Sea Bass, Calamari, vegetables and drinks. Along the way, we saw wild baboons raiding eggs from many ostrich farms. Wild Zebra, Eland, and other animals live throughout the protected areas. At the Boulders we saw hundreds of African Penguins, formally known as Jackass Penguins. This was a very interesting penguin viewing since it was situated along the beach in a residential area. This all day tour covered a huge distance and it gave us the opportunity to see some of the most beautiful coastal landscape and beaches in the world.
Our ship departed Cape Town at 6:00pm en route to Luderitz, Namibia.
