With the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront as its
centrepiece, Cape Town has a sun-drenched working harbour
that basks underneath Table Mountain. Photo by MCT.
The eyes of the world will be on South Africa in June as
the 2010 Fifa World Cup kicks off.
A quarterfinal and semifinal will be played in Cape Town.
Mary Ann Anderson, of MCT, has some tips for travellers to
that southern city.
Artefacts in the District Six Museum attest to the days of
apartheid.
The museum is a stop on the Roots Africa tour.
Hunkering down against the wind-whipped, cloud-shrouded
summit of Table Mountain, my first thought was that the
bottom of Africa is pretty much the tops.
The 360-degree vista of Cape Town was striking against a sky
painted a rich lapis lazuli and from the pinnacle of the
mountain the city quite literally seems to unfold all the way
to the ends of the earth.
Indeed, the closest landmass to it other than Africa itself
is the Antarctic.
Poised at the tip of South Africa's southwesterly coast, the
entire Cape Peninsula, encompassing Cape Town, the Cape
Winelands and the beaches of False Bay, juts spectacularly
into the hammering waves, where they collide at the
intersection of the warm Indian Ocean and the cold Atlantic.
Hands down, Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in
the world and all eyes will be on it from June 11 to July 11
when the 2010 Fifa World Cup and the bend-it-like-Beckham
bunch come to South Africa.
The games will be played in cities all over the country,
among them Johannesburg, Durban, Nelspruit and Pretoria, with
several matches, including a quarterfinal and a semifinal, in
Cape Town.
If you have managed to score tickets to the World Cup, here
are some Cape Town top tips - a must-do list of places to see
and things to do while you are in the city.
1 Visit the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront.
The stunning architecture of Cape Town, with the V&A as
its centrepiece, clearly evokes an Old World ambience.
The sun-drenched waterfront is a working harbour that basks
underneath Table Mountain, and its old warehouses and
docksides have been converted into a buzzing beehive of
activity.
Glittering hotels edge the waterfront, including Victoria
& Alfred, the Cape Grace, the Dock House and the One
& Only.
2 Experience Robben Island.
Board the Robben Island Ferry on the V&A for a
fascinating tour of the desolate island prison where Nelson
Mandela spent nearly two decades of his life for fighting the
good fight against apartheid.
Tours are led by former political prisoners who gladly share
their life stories.
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