I have had my fair share of horrible travel experiences. Two concussions in a week and visit to a French hospital. Check. Robbed of all of my possessions on the first night of a six week trip in Chile. Yes. Forced to spend the night in a Moroccan home until we bought carpets. Yup. And, according to a recent New York Times article “Great Vacation? Don’t Brag to Your Friends,” my social networks would rather hear about these travel mishaps than my recent trip to Cape Town.
From Camps Bay head along the M6 coastal route to Cape Peninsula National Park via the Chapman’s Peak toll road. The Chapman’s Peak toll road is literally carved into the face of the mountain and offers spectacular vistas of Houts Bay, Chapman’s Peak, and Noordhoek. This has to be one of the most dramatic coastal routes in the world.
New York City is often anthropomorphized in fiction and film probably because what makes it one of the world’s greatest cities is precisely its flawed characteristics, its contrasts of grime and glamour, its pulsating 24-hour energy, its vices, and its cultural and financial significance. I never tire of visiting New York City and decided to spend two days there after a brief and emotionally tumultuous visit to Washington, DC. Two days with my family in New York was the perfect antidote to my disappointing DC visit.
I was acutely reminded of Thomas Wolfe’s novel “You Can’t Go Home Again” during my two day whirlwind trip to Washington, DC. In the days before I moved from DC to Johannesburg, I walked up and down 14th Street in my neighborhood marveling at the number of eateries and high-end condos that had sprouted up over the course of the last few months. I fretted that when I returned, my city would be unrecognizable.
Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that this weekend I flew to Pietermaritzburg and drove 45 minutes to Hartford House for a meal. I have been slowly eating my way through the 2013 Eat Out Top 10 restaurants in South Africa and while I don’t get think I will get through the list this year, I have managed to eat at six of the top ten restaurants.
Winemaking has a 350 year history in South Africa. In exile Napoleon enjoyed South African wines from Constantia and even Jane Austen was a fan. Despite a long history of wine production, South Africa is classified as a new world wine producer much to the consternation of local winemakers. Stellenbosch is the largest wine producing region in the country and the perfect weekend getaway.