Cape Town, South Africa

What a difference a few days can make! Cape Town was due to be an overnight call and we had plans. Em and I have friends who live in Cape Town and we'd organised to meet, give them a tour of the ship before meeting later in the evening to head out!

After a lengthy tour of the ship with lunch on board, we eventually left the ship at about 8pm and headed to the upmarket Camps Bay, a self described Miami type area a 20 minute drive away from the city. A lively bustling part of Cape Town where there is clear wealth in abundance. The drive took us past Aston Martin and Ferrari showrooms and on arriving into Camps Bay, the same were being driven by the residents. A world away from Durban, almost Monaco like!

Our mission for the evening was to find food and drinks and to my delight we agreed to head for steak and wine. We're in South Africa, debate was pretty much off the table on this issue in my opinion.

No better name for a steak and wine restaurant than Bovine and wow, this place did not disappoint. Steak Tartare to start? Yes please! The other had bone marrow whilst Em had garlic prawns and everything looked amazing. My Tartare was unbelievable, this was washed down by a carefully selected bottle of red which was stunning!!! 

The steak selection was brought to the table with a lengthy explanation about each choice. Rib Eye won the day and I ordered rare with Em going for Sirloin. A glass of amazing wine later and the steak arrived and I found myself in a small part of heaven! I can't tell you how delicious everything was. Beyond anything I could have wished!

Obviously, another amazing bottle of red wine was selected and I continued on my personal journey into utopia. Over that couple of hours I tasted some of the best steak and wine I've ever had. The bill arrived as the house lights were being turned up, it was suddenly 11pm and for some reason the staff wanted to call it a day. I braced myself for the price.... £50 a head including the tip. 4 starters, 4 mains, 4 bottles of outstanding wine in an affluent area!! Apparently this was tourist prices. I've never been happier to pay a bill!!!

And so after that feast, it was time to head back to the ship and get some sleep before tomorrow's fun and games!

Day 2 - Wine Tasting 

At 10am our friends picked us up from the ship for the drive out to the wine region just on the slopes of Table Mountain about a 30 minute drive out of Cape Town. I was excited for this, I've been very lucky to have done wine tasting in a lot of iconic regions, Hunter Valley, Australia, Martinborough and Marlborough, New Zealand, Portugal, Tuscany, Croatia, The South of France, Napa Valley and Sonoma, California but South Africa has never presented itself as an option. Until today!

Our first winery was Beau Constantia, a stunning winery in the Constantia region. Here we sat and enjoyed generous pours of several of their best wines. The manicured gardens overlooked the vineyards below. The toilets had their own panoramic views, the whole setting was beautiful. The weather was warm and once again I found myself wondering how on earth I'd found myself here!!! We discussed sending a case home but elected to settle for just the one bottle as the next winery was supposedly one of the best in this part of the world!

And so it was that we set off to make the ten minute journey to our next winery for tasting and lunch.

Next up was Constantia Glen, one of the jewels of the region responsible for making wine for nearly 4 centuries. Sounds good to me!!!