Cape Town - Before the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a 17th-century victualling station on Table Bay's pristine shore, the Khoi-Khoi and the San (Bushmen) hunted the Cape Flats for hippopotami and other large game. With colonisation, the Cape of Good Hope established a lasting tradition of hospitality leading weary explorers and sailors to rename it 'The Tavern of the Seas'. The sight of majestic Table Mountain and the people who live beneath it are as welcoming today as they were all those years ago, the looming crags a striking landmark providing a magnificent backdrop to the vibrant, friendly Mother City.

Cape Town is truly one of the most picturesque cities in the world. It is southern Africa's most beautiful, most romantic and most-visited cities. Indeed, few urban centres anywhere can match its setting along the Cape Peninsula spine, which slides like the mighty tail of the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. By far the most striking of its sights is Table Mountain, frequently mantled by clouds, and rearing up from the middle of the city to provide a constantly changing vista to the suburbs below.

More than a scenic backdrop, Table Mountain is the solid core of Cape Town, dividing the city into distinct zones with public gardens, wilderness, forests, hiking routes, vineyards and desirable residential areas trailing down its lower slopes. Standing on the tabletop, you can look north for a giddy view of the city centre, its docks filled with matchbox ships. Looking west, beyond the mountainous Twelve Apostles, the drop is sheer and your eye will sweep across Africa's priciest real estate, clinging to the slopes along the chilly Atlantic seaboard. Turning south, beyond the leafy middle-class suburbs of Newlands and Constantia, lays the warmer but more distant False Bay seaboard, which curves around before fading off to Cape Point.

Modern Cape Town, with its extended seafront, underground malls and soaring skyscrapers holds itself dear to its origins. Explore the many fascinating museums and historical buildings reflecting the cultures shaping the city and the province it serves. The city boasts a vast range of shopping styles and opportunities, from the haggling between stallholders and shoppers at the Grand Parade's and Greenmarket Square's fleamarkets, to smooth, hassle-free self-service at countless sophisticated and stylish malls.
The city is safer than most on any continent with a bustling street life of shops, cafes, market stalls and street artists. This vibrancy is set amongst historic buildings of old Cape Dutch and English architecture with the Castle of Good Hope dating back to 1666, when the first Dutch settlers set up a re-victualling station for trading ships.

To enjoy Cape Town you need to spend time outdoors, as Capetonians do, often choosing mountain bikes in preference to cars and turning adventure activities into an obsession. Sailboarders from around the world head for Table Bay for some of the world's best windsurfing, and the brave jump off Lion's Head and paraglide down close to the Clifton beachfront. But the city offers sedate pleasures as well, along its hundreds of hiking trails and 150km of beaches, as well as in its marvellous botanical gardens and wine estates.

Other highlights of Cape Town include taking a drive through the enchanting Chapman's Peak, going on a deep sea fishing excursion, visiting Robben Island to see where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for over a quarter century, enjoying the best of Cape-Malay cuisine, spending down on the many exquisite beaches, visiting the Cape Point to witness the meeting of The Indian and The Atlantic Ocean's, hanging out with the locals at the countless bars and taverns, tucking in to seafood feasts at one of the Hout Bay restaurants, going on a shark dive, scoring a bargain at The Green Market Square Flea Market, watching one of the pro teams giving it stick at a live cricket/rugby/soccer match, getting in touch with the Cape music scene, partying hard all night at one of the many down-town night clubs or simply escaping for extended periods of relaxion on a secluded hill top by the seaside.