Travel Log: Capetown, South Africa

I am excited to share the first of my South Africa travel logs with you today! We recently returned from an amazing ten day vacation in South Africa that included time in Capetown, wine country, a Wildlife Reserve, and Gansbaai (known for shark cage diving). South Africa is located at the southernmost part of Africa with diverse terrain and many exciting things to do. This first travel log is all about our adventures in the coastal city of Capetown.  Please read on for highlights, links, and more photos from our three days in this exciting city on the southwest coast of South Africa.

I flew from Seattle to London, had a long layover in London and then took an overnight flight to Capetown with several of our friends. The flight left at 9:30pm and arrived in Capetown around 10:00am (11 1/2 hours nonstop). Capetown is one hour ahead of London, so if you can sleep on planes it really is ideal. We stayed in Camps Bay, a gorgeous area of Capetown with both mountain and water views.  We stopped briefly at our resort to shower/change and then went straight to lunch.

We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Roundhouse Restaurant with gorgeous views of both Table Mountain and Camps Bay. I will probably say this multiple times, but all of our meals in South Africa were fantastic!

A closer look at the view of Camps Bay and Table Mountain. Although we visited Capetown in winter and we thought it would be raining, we were very lucky to have sunshine and warm temperatures (upper 60's F) while in this city. It got even warmer when we moved inland later to visit wine country and a game preserve for safari adventures.

We stayed at the Camps Bay Retreat, which I absolutely recommend if you are looking for a place to stay in Capetown. It is absolutely gorgeous with a peaceful location right by the water. They also have two yellow Labrador Retrievers who live onsite and are always down to play named Ben and Bailey, which is always a plus in my book.

Camps Bay Retreat has rooms in the main Dyke Manor building (shown in the photo before this) as well as additional rooms in a Deck House and Villas located a short distance away from the manor across a super cool rope bridge.

Our room was in the Deck House, upstairs with a modern design and gorgeous view of the water.

My big news from this trip is that we got engaged! He surprised me by proposing on the deck in the photo above before we met up with our friends for dinner. My boyfriend and I have been together for over four years and our life is a wonderful adventure that I cannot wait to continue as husband and wife. This surprise proposal was the most wonderful way to start our South Africa trip.

After the surprise proposal, we met up with our friends and went to Cafe Caprice on Camps Bay Beach for sunset champagne. The chairs in the previous photo were randomly located on the beach under a lighted heart - you can see the full view here.

Cafe Caprice is a great place to watch the sunset, and we enjoyed champagne before dinner. It is so much fun to travel with this group and be able to celebrate together!

After Cafe Caprice, we headed to The Pot Luck Club for dinner. The Pot Luck Club is Chef Luke Dale Roberts' newest restaurant (he's also known for award winning Test Kitchen, number 22 on the 2016 World's 50 Best Restaurants list) and the coolest place to be in Capetown. We enjoyed a fabulous dinner of shareable tapas sized plates, and I wholeheartedly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Capetown. A huge thank you to my friend Debbie for getting this reservation for us!

Day two in Capetown was a bit gloomy with rain on and off, but we went to check out a popular tourist spot called the V&A Waterfront. The Victoria & Albert Waterfront has a number of shops and restaurants, as well as a farmer's market and food hall.

Our third day in Capetown we hired a driver to take our group down to Cape Point (the southwestern tip of Africa) as well as Boulder Beach to see the penguins. Our first stop outside of the city was this gorgeous viewpoint that looked back on Capetown and was absolutely picture perfect.

Once we reached Cape Point, we walked/hiked up a paved path to a scenic viewpoint underneath a lighthouse. This photo looks out at the Cape of Good Hope from the top of the path. There is a funicular that you can take up to this point instead of hiking, but the funicular was not operating that day. We very much enjoyed the short hike and the sweeping views from the top!

We took a number of photos and videos and enjoyed the sunshine! I definitely dressed for more of a trail hike than a paved walkway, but I was super comfortable!

Another favorite group photo with the Cape of Good Hope!

After Cape Point, our driver took us to Simon's Town where Boulder Beach is located.  Boulder Beach is famous for its penguin population who live there year round.  There were so many more penguins than I expected to see!

After Boulder Beach, our driver took us back to Capetown and dropped us off at the Table Mountain Cable Car. It was bright and sunny down below, and we were able to get more gorgeous photos of the city.

The top of Table Mountain was covered in clouds, so once we reached the top we couldn't see anything! They took a greenscreen photo of our group before we got on the cable car, which I bought because 1) they were inexpensive and 2) you can see what it would have looked like if it had been clear.

We rented our own van for the next stage of our journey: wine country! This photo shows Table Mountain (still covered in clouds) on our way out of Capetown on day four. Be sure to check back for the rest of my South Africa travel logs, and please do not hesitate to reach out if you are thinking of visiting South Africa and have any questions on what we did.  Thank you for visiting my blog toady, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and weekend!