Western Cape
Cape Town is affectionately known by its locals as 'The Mother City'. Some say its called this because things are so laid back and relaxed here, that it takes 9 months to get anything done! But it is more likely called this because it was the first piece of land to be claimed by Jan van Riebeeck back in 1652 and it was from here, that further developments took place.
Cape Town is located at the southern tip of the continent and enjoys a matchless setting. Nestling snuggly in a natural amphitheatre between the immensity of Table Mountain and the blue waters of Table Bay, it is a modern, cosmopolitan and stylishly attractive metropolis of graceful thoroughfares, handsome buildings and glittering shops. The seamless combination of the above elements are fast making Cape Town one of the hemisphere's premier tourist destinations.
Cape Town is a rather small city by world standards. The central area, its growth confined by both sea and mountain, covers just a dozen or so blocks. But the wider metropolitan area is enormous. The main thrust of development has been suburban, and the suburbs seem to go on for ever, each one a village or modest-sized town in its own rights. To travel between, say, the western coastal centers of Kommetjie and Atlantis involves an 80 km journey. The city proper occupies the northern part of the Cape Peninsula, a 54 km- long, scenic finger of that ends, dramatically, in the towering headland known as Cape Point. Popular belief has it that Cape Point marks the spot where the division between the cold waters of the Atlantic and the warm waters of the Indian Ocean occurs. This is however, a common misconception since the actual separation takes places much further east, off the coast of Cape Agulhas, Africa's southernmost extremity. Nevertheless there are striking differences of character and mood between the Peninsula's flanking seas.
Visitors expecting conventional images of the Dark Continent will be disappointed. There is nothing of the classical Africa about Cape Town and its surrounds - no heat-hazed veld stretching to far horizons, no distant drumbeats, and no wild animals circling the bounds of your safari camp. The city is too old, and the region too well settled, and the countryside too green and gentle to sustain such romantic notions. But there are other powerful attractions: a near-perfect Mediterranean climate, landscapes that delight the eye, spectacular beaches, the grandeur of Table Mountain, the exuberant Waterfront development, fine hotels, a innumerable amount of eating and drinking places, a lively and entertaining calendar of arts, and an enchanting wineland and mountain neighborhood.
Much of the Peninsula comprises a well-watered, green-mantled sandstone plateau that reaches its most spectacular heights in the great bulk of Table Mountain itself. Two distinctively-shaped features; Devil's Peak and Lion's Head, stand sentry to either side of the massif. Defining the plateau's western rim is a series of imposing buttresses known as the Twelve Apostles (there are in fact 18 of them).
The shoreline is an entrancing combination of bay and white sand, high cliff and secluded cove. Inland are wooded valleys of magical beauty. To the north and east are the Cape Flats; a low, sandy flatland that once, not too long ago on the geophysical timetable, lay beneath the sea. Their shifting dunes proved a formidable obstacle to early Dutch colonists on their way inland, but the sands were eventually stabilized and are now heavily populated. Beyond lie the hills, vineyards, orchards and lush pastures of the famed Cape Winelands.
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