Today was a real toss up as to what I would do; so many things left to choose from and only 2 days to do them in Cape Town. I ended up eliminating the game farms since I will be seeing more of these along the way. No guarantee I will be able to see Robben Island since there are so many tourists in town. So I opted for the Hop-on Hop-off bus to do the Wine Tour. It is another holiday today so the roads will be crowded again, and if I want to do some wine tasting there is no way I want to be driving.
Dutch windmill along the M3
A view of the M3, same road I came back on yesterday
The road going to the Botanical GardensI ended up doing part of yesterday’s route in reverse, which would have been a lot easier and faster if I had followed this route yesterday to go to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The estates in the Gardens District are huge and all behind high walls. The tour to the wine area of Constantia is well organized; you get off at one stop just past the botanical gardens and hop on another bus that takes you to the Groot Constantia Estate, the oldest vineyard in South Africa, dates back to 1709. http://www.grootconstantia.co.za/index.php?id=11
Arriving at Groot Constantia Estate
The main house
One of the bedrooms in the mansion
The old cellars, now a museum
Mycenaean Golden Cups 1500 BC
"Bottle tickets" to be used on decanter bottles
Huge oak wine casksAfter walking around the estate, touring the mansion and the museum, I went in to the wine tasting area and also wanted to tour the cellars. Unfortunately there was a 45 minute wait for the cellar tour, so I ended up just doing the wine tasting since I needed to be back at the bus stop before getting stranded out there. For a very reasonable price, you got to taste 5 of the 11 wines on offer, so I went for 1 white (Gourverneur’s Reserve, but it did not specify which type of grape; not my favourite). 1 rosé (Blanc de Noir; 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon; almost a white strangely enough and not my favourite either). 2 reds (Constantia Rood a mixture of Merlot 38%, Cabernet Franc 37%, Shiraz 18%, Cabernet Sauvignon 5%, Pinotage 1% & Malbec 1%; not bad !) Gouverneur’s Reserve (Cabernet Sauvignon 32%, Cabernet Franc 33%, Merlot 28% & Malbec 7%; much better) and finally 1 port which strangely enough turned out to be my favourite. The fact that I was on my 5th glass on an empty stomach may have had something to do with that ! ! !
I think that was the third glass ! ! !
A view of the valley from the vineyard
Groot Constantia vineyard
The Constantia valley
Young vinesWhile I was doing the wine tasting I chatted with a few of the people who were there: a South African couple (tips on the drive to Port Elizabeth) and a Canadian couple from Montreal. He is a University professor working at the University of Cape Town on an Astrological project: MeerKAT. South Africa and Australia are vying for this huge project to build the most powerful telescopes in the world and the decision should be made in February or March 2012. They had one of their PHD associates with them, she is from Colorado. Very interesting conversation. Links: http://www.ska.ac.za/meerkat/ http://www.southafrica.info/about/science/fullmoonfever.htm
There was a second stop for wine tasting, but I was plastered by the 5th glass and decided to just stay on the bus and go back to Cape Town.
Another estate along the way
One of the townships, HUGE discrepancies between rich and poor
Condos/hotels along the way
Someone has built a castle on the mountain side
Arriving at Hout Bay
Selling their art beside the road along the coast
Lion's Head in the distance
Swimmers in one of the small bays
Coast line
Camps Bay
The 12 apostles
Clifton BayThe only thing I had to eat all day was a banana for breakfast and 3 crackers with the wine, so when I got off the bus in front of my hotel I decided to treat myself to a very nice meal of Surf and Turf. The restaurant had a North American Native Indian theme. How funny is that!
Stained glass window and light in the restaurant
Steak and prawns with a side order of spinach & pumpkin ! D E L I C I O U S
Brownie with ice cream and an Irish CoffeeWhen I got back to my room to update my blog, I realized that somewhere along the last part, I had managed to lose the pamphlet on which I had jotted down all my notes from the previous days ! ! !
Here are some of the corrections I need to make to previous notes:
V & A Waterfront does NOT stand for Victoria and Albert (her husband), but Victoria and Alfred (her second son). What is Afrikaans:
- Afrikaans is made up of Dutch and Arabic according to the guides on the Hop-on Hop-off buses.
- Wikipedia = “Although Afrikaans adopted words from languages such as Malay, Portuguese, the Bantu languages, and the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Afrikaans vocabulary is ultimately of Dutch origin.[
- A South African internet source indicates: “The Afrikaans language does contain words from English, Khoi, Xhosa, Asian Malay, Malagasy, San, Portuguese and French, although many of these words do sound extremely and noticeably different.”
- Still another South African source: “The Dutch dialect established after 1652 incorporated terms and phrases handed down from sailors who had been shipwrecked off the Cape coast after it became clear that the horn of Africa presented another viable trade route. The arrival of the French Huguenots in 1688 almost doubled the European population of the cape, and also naturally had an immense impact on the spoken language of the day. These phrases, of English, French and Portuguese origin, soon found their way into the Dutch dialect. The Hottentots, the original Khoi inhabitants, as well as the Xhosa and the Zulu people all contributed in their fashion to the language as it spoken today. In addition, the language took on a more oriental flavour with the arrival of a slaves in the Cape, primarily of Malay extraction, but also from other eastern regions and nearby African islands including Madagascar."
