Empty Quarter
Experiences

Off Duty

Cape Town, South Africa

When
27 January – 1 February 2027
From
AED 20,000
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A watercolour of penguins on the rocks at Boulders, the sea beyond them and Table Mountain across the bay

Cape Town began as a place to stop. Ships on the long route between Europe and the East put in here for water and rest, and sailors knew it as the Tavern of the Seas.

It has never quite stopped being that. There is a mountain at the end of the street, the sea is cold enough to make you shout, and it stays light until eight.

For five nights you are in port. Nothing is asked of you until you leave.

Cruise through Chapman's Peak in a Cobra at sunset

Nine kilometres of road cut into the face of the mountain between Hout Bay and Noordhoek, a hundred and fourteen bends, the Atlantic on one side and the rock on the other. It is routinely called the most beautiful drive in the world and the argument against it is thin. You take it in an open Cobra, late, with the sun going down into the sea ahead of you.

Two Cobras pulled up above the sea at the end of the afternoon, the sun going down behind the headland

Swim with penguins at Boulders

A colony of African penguins has had the run of this beach outside Simon's Town since the early eighties. The granite is older than almost anything you will stand on, the water on this side of the peninsula is warm enough to stay in, and the penguins are entirely unbothered by you. You swim. They carry on.

Four African penguins on the sand at Boulders at first light, granite boulders behind them and the mountains across False Bay

Paraglide over Camps Bay

You run off the side of the mountain with a pilot strapped behind you and the whole seaboard opens at once — the Twelve Apostles standing along one side, the beaches in a line below, the water turning from navy to green where it shallows. Twenty minutes in the air, and you land on the grass by the sea.

A paraglider high over Camps Bay in late light, the Twelve Apostles running away behind and the bay curving below
The Franschhoek wine tram on its rails between the vineyards, the mountains standing behind it

The estates, and the tram that runs between them

An hour inland the mountains close in and the valley floor is nothing but vines. You move between the estates on an open wooden tram built on the old fruit line — it stops, you taste, it comes back for you. Late January is the start of harvest, so the cellars are working rather than performing, and lunch under the oaks has no end time.

A Cape Dutch estate at the top of its vineyards in the last of the light

A house above the bay.

Somewhere between the Twelve Apostles and the Atlantic.

The upper plunge pool with Lion's Head directly behind it

The pool ends and the Atlantic begins.

The covered terrace at dusk, Lion's Head standing across the bay
The pool and sun deck along the side of the house, loungers out, the Atlantic beyond
Two loungers on the lawn, late morning, frangipani in the foreground
A balcony looking across the roof to the pool, the Twelve Apostles standing over it
The kitchen island, the wall folded away, the plunge pool and the ocean past it

Three walls, and a mountain for the fourth.

A living room opened completely to Lion's Head, two chairs facing it
The covered terrace, long seating down both sides, where the evenings go
A bedroom at dusk, the window open the full width of the wall and Lion's Head in it

Every room is looking at something.

A bedroom opening onto the garden, the doors pushed back
A bed on a jute rug under a high white wall, a bench at the foot of it
A bathroom with the bath set into the window and a double vanity along the wall
A white room with one picture on the wall and the morning coming through the curtain

The days, briefly.

The covered terrace where the evenings go
27 Jan

Arrive

You land and settle into a villa above the sea. An easy first evening: a walk along the harbour, dinner in an old house in the city, an early night.

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