South-Africa – The best view of a city is from the top of a mountain

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It's allready more than two years since I was in Cape Town – the «Mother of Cities» and one of the most beautiful cities I have seen. Lot's of things to do and see. It's very modern, but at the same time there are so many traces of the country's heartbreaking history. Many of these important sights shouldn't be missed, but we had to make some choices. In order to understand South-Africa today, a dip back into the history is nesecary, so we went to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, Iziko Slave Lodge, a visit to a township. But also the V&A Waterfront, Castle of Good Hope and not least, the iconic Table Mountain. This moutain is one of the most visited attractions - surrounded by the city and completely dominating the skyline of Cape Town.

Table Mountain seen from V&A Waterfront

Cape Town with Table Mountain seen from Robben Island

After two days of going to many of the historical sights, we chose to visit Table Mountain on our third day. To get around to the major sights we used the hop-on, hop-off city sightseeing bus. It's an easy way to get around to larger areas and the headphones onboard provides useful information while looking at the city. This was our first stop.

Table Mountain is located within a park stretching over a larger area than just the mountain itself, although it is the main attraction. The mountain is 1086 m. high and «flat» on the top. It's actually considered the oldest mountain in the world. Another fact I didn't know, is that it's one of the new 7 wonders of the nature.

To get to the top you can choose among several tracks. Some are steep and it can take up to a couple of hours to reach the top. If it's an early start with clouds or mist, it might even be risky. If you don't want to reach the top all sweaty or don't want to spend a couple of hours to get there, then the cable car is an easy choice. It was only a five minute ride to the top. The view is spectacular! The cable car rotates slowly providing a 360 degree view of the city and everything around it.

There are the other two tops - Lion Head (669 m.) and Signal Mountain, which also offers hiking possibilities. We met a couple who had acctually hiked to the top of Signal Mt. in the afternoon to watch the sunset form there. They could recommend doing just that.

The clouds were hanging low over the city, but despite that,the view from the top was spectacular. We were above the city and above the clouds. As we followed the trails we kept looking out over the city to see the clouds disappeared little by little.

We spent several hours following some of the different trails, enjoying the views and at the same time getting some exercise, before we returned to the starting point. There is a cafe where the cable car station is and plenty of places to sit with a spectacular overview of the beautiful city.

A great way to end the day - Victoria & Albert Waterfront which provides a great view of the mountain. It's still a working harbour for smaller boats and the whole area is filled with shops, bars and restaurants. That is the place to have an expensive dinner! But then again, it came with a view and intertainment from local bands.

Source: https://www.sanparks.org/parks/table_mountain/

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