Western Cape, South Africa

The Western Cape is the most popular region of South Africa as a destination for foreign tourists. It is home to the famous Table Mountain, landmark of the city of Cape Town, and in fact its entire geography is a rich montage of craggy mountains, deserted beaches and impossibly stunning countryside, making it the most beautiful province in South Africa.

Visitors can spend weeks in the Western Cape without exhausting all the wildlife, adventure, culinary and sightseeing possibilities.

Attractions

Cape Town, hugging the slopes of Table Mountain, is the Western Cape's most popular attraction. A city of great and romantic beauty, Cape Town is set on the Cape Peninsula, the thin finger of land in the south westernmost corner of Africa that juts dramatically into the Atlantic ocean at Cape Point.

The city boasts fabulous accommodation: from the colonial charm of the Mount Nelson to the boutique hotels of Camps Bay - home to the rich and nearly famous.

The peninsula contains extensive, unique and incredibly diverse flora and fauna particularly that of the famous fynbos, and its east and west coastlines are two sharply differentiated marine environments.

The interior of the Western Cape, South Africa contains the Winelands, the Whale Coast & Overberg, the Cederberg region, and the Garden Route (which is so replete with beautifully situated towns that it requires its own regional description).

The Cape Winelands area, of which Stellenbosch is the popular capital, is a scenically enchanting region of dramatic mountains and fertile valleys, planted with vines stretching across rolling fields. It is a wonderful combination of small historic towns, beautiful scenery and wine estates producing delicious wines and brandies.

The Whale Coast & Overberg lie over the mountains from Cape Town and the Cape Winelands. The Overberg has a soft, agricultural landscape that shows off a seasonal patchwork of colours - yellow canola fields, golden wheat, green meadows and red earth.

The coast here is known as the Whale Coast because of the large number of whales that migrate to these shores every year to mate and calve. A popular whale-watching destination, this southern coastline also boasts the southernmost tip of Africa and various quaint fishing villages to be explored.

The inland Cederberg mountains lie about 250km north of Cape Town. The Cederberg is an extensive, little-visited but fabulous mountain range, home to some weird and spectacular rock formations as well as some jaw-dropping views (from the top of Sneeuwberg on a clear day you can see the ocean).

The arid north-western Cape is also famed for its wild flowers. After the first rains in spring (mid-August to mid-September), the fields of Namaqualand, part of the great semi-desert expanses of the Karoo, stretch out in blankets of vivid, luminous floral colour.

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