Tuesday, April 9, 2013

{South Africa: Days Five & Six}

Hello, hello! It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, the good news is I wasn't eaten by a lion :)
We got back from our safari 8 days ago. I can't believe we've already been back so long.

I want to continue on with a couple short posts giving a general overview of each day of our stay in SA, then I'll do some more detailed posts on where we stayed, our itinerary, restaurant suggestions, the whole deal. I've already gotten several requests for a detailed itinerary to follow, so I will definitely be working on that!!

On our fifth day in Cape Town we finally got to take things a little slower. We slept in a bit and then made our way up to Table Mountain. We booked our tickets on the gondola ahead of time as we've heard the lines can get pretty long. Luckily there weren't any lines at all! Cape Town is just full of amazing views. We didn't think we'd be up at the top of the mountain long, but of course we ended up taking our time walking around and enjoying the scenery. It was a warm and beautiful day! 

Later that day we ventured over to Camp's Bay - the more "posh" beachside area in Cape Town. We strolled along the beach as we got lost trying to find our restaurant and wished we would have come down earlier and spent the day soaking up the sun (took note for next time!). We ended up getting appetizers and cocktails and watching the sunset at The Bungalow. I must admit, while it was a nice experience, it wasn't really our scene. One of our friends had told us it was very "South of France", but I would have gone further to say it was more Miami. I felt a little out of place, but it wasn't anything a couple drinks couldn't fix :) We ended up seeing a beautiful sunset and having tons of fun. 

On our sixth day in Cape Town we checked out of our amazing hotel (can't wait to tell you more about it!), and drove an hour outside of the city to wine country! We didn't even make time to drop our bags at our guest house as we had lunch reservations we could not be late for! Going into this trip we actually had a lot of recommendations. A meal at Maison was at the top of our friend's list, so we booked weeks in advance to make sure we wouldn't miss out. The second we stepped in we understood why they had said it was their favorite meal of their entire trip. Everything was flawless. The decor, the service, the food, the wine, the grounds. My my my. We ended up spending a good 3+ hours there just making ourselves at home and contemplating never leaving (maybe they wouldn't find us if we hid in their awesome bathrooms?). It was an afternoon to remember. There will definitely be more to come on this place! 

After checking into our cute little guest house in Franschhoek we made our way to Dieu Donne Vineyards to enjoy the view (and a glass of wine of course). I wish my camera could have captured the insane beauty of the landscape. It literally took my breath away. We were so excited to be in wine country and couldn't wait for a full day of tasting the following day! 
 {Photos © Liz Denfeld Photography}