Cape Town

By Dominique Botha

DON’T take the cable car up Table Mountain. Walk instead, and have your breath taken away by the view that fuelled the Cape to Cairo railway fantasies of Cecil John Rhodes. Keep your eyes peeled for rare red disas—delicate orchids named after a mythic Norse heroine.

DOspare your knees and take the cable car down in good time to celebrate the occasion with lunch amid the creviced oaks and fondant gables of La Colombe in Constantia. Sweeten the end of your feast with a glass of the local vin de Constance, as mentioned in “Sense and Sensibility” for “its healing powers on a disappointed heart”.

DOgo to the Botanical Gardens at Kirstenbosch, for its Sunday summer concerts, cycads and the astonishing clarity of the water in the bird-shaped pool built by a Colonel Bird in 1811.