Cape Town

Although the weather is not a huge influence when choosing dates to visit Cape Town, it can get pretty cold and wet in winter. One of the Cape's most characteristic climactic phenomena is the famous Cape Doctor, a southeasterly wind that buffets the Cape and lays Table Mountain's famous 'tablecloth' (a layer of cloud that covers the City Bowl). It can be a welcome breeze in summer, but it can also be a wild gale, particularly in spring. When it really blows you know you're clinging to a peninsula at the southern end of Africa, and there's nothing between you and Antarctica.

For anybody planning to visit Cape Town, especially during our "High" and "Peak" Holiday Seasons, it is absolutely imperative that you book all your accommodation in good time or you will end up sleeping on the beach! Ok, I know our beaches are gorgeous but sleeping on the beach? So book early to avoid dissapointment. Visitors to the Cape will find that Cape Town accommodation options are great. You can stay at 3-5 star Cape Town hotels, luxury Guest Houses, comfortable B&B's for those on a more modest budget and even backpackers for the cash-strapped. If you prefer to cater for yourselves there are literally hundreds of Cape Town Self Catering establishments to choose from.

There are plenty of excellent websites available that you can use to plan your Cape Town vacation. Contact your local Travel Agent or start here with these recommended sites:
http://www.uncoverthecape.co.za/
http://www.sa-venues.com/westcape2.htm
http://www.capetowntravel.com/cape_town_hotels.asp

The best way to see Cape Town! Go on a 2 hour guided, open-top bus trip around the Mother City. The tour includes the Waterfront and city centre in detail, then stops at Table Mountain for a panoramic view and concludes with a coastal drive back through Camps Bay. This is a "Hop on, Hop off" service.

I have been asked a lot of questions about Robben Island (the Island that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on, just off Cape Town) so here goes ...

Robben Island lies approximately 12 kilometers from Cape Town and for the past 400 years this island has had anything but a peaceful history. The island has become synonymous with heartache, despair and a place where people were dumped for various reasons, most of those reasons horrify us today and we often cannot image what it must have been like, what the conditions were for the poor souls shut away from the world, a world they knew existed y 12 kilometers from their own private hell.

Robben Island was inhabited thousands of years ago when there was a walk-way between the Cape Mainland and the island, before the sea covered it. The island took on its sinister reputation in the mid-1600s when the Dutch settled at the Cape. The island was a convenient place to use for Portuguese and English prisoners and soon political prisoners joined the general criminal population already incarcerated there.

For about one hundred years Robben Island became a quarantine station with a hospital for lepers and the insane. During this time there was little medical help for people who were chronically ill, so the island was put in use to house the chronically ill as well. This all sounds surreal to us today, that you could be exiled to an island with lepers and the insane if you had a chronic illness, but that is exactly what happened.

The only time in history the island was put to a different use was during WW2 when it was a defense and training facility. During the military occupation they improved the water supplying system, built a new power station, erected modern housing and brought in a new boat to for supplies and commuting from the mainland. From 1961 to 1991 it was a maximum security prison for political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela and other famous heroes of the struggle.

1994 saw the dawning of a new era for this turbulent island and for all the island today stands as a living memorial to the strength of human will to survive and fight for what they believe in, to fight for freedom from injustice, racism and the suppression of human rights and dignity and to this end the island has been declared a World Heritage Site. In 1996 the last of the criminal prisoners left the island.

People from all over the world come to Robben Island; for many it is a pilgrimage, to stand in silence in this place of great suffering, to acknowledge the horrors of the past and to celebrate the victory of those who fought and died for freedom and to rejoice for those who walked out of the prison as free men.

See additional info here: Robben Island.

Cape Town is the city of fair skies, gorgeous beaches, magnificent gardens and an extensive list of wedding and reception venues. Outdoor locations for wedding photographs abound ...

If Cape Town is your chosen wedding destination then you are spoilt for choice, as the Mother City has some of the most picturesque beaches in the world with wide expanses of sand, sparkling water and strategically placed boulders for those 'photo moments'. Wine Estates, Botanical Gardens ...

Find out more about getting married in Cape Town at Cape Town Weddings.

Cape Town International Airport, South Africa's second-largest airport, is a prime tourism gateway - because the Western Cape is one of this country's major attractions. And, because the airport is often a visitor's first encounter with South Africa, it aims for world-class service and strives to offer everything a passenger might need - from accommodation to a VIP room. In fact, Cape Town International Airport has been the World Travel Awards' leading airport in Africa for six years in a row.