It is really easy to understand why Cape Town was voted the “Greatest City in the World” by a poll of 90,000 readers in the 2017 Telegraph Travel Awards. The windy city of Cape Town offers a huge amount of natural beauty mixed with incredible culture and even greater wining and dining experiences.

Here are our top 6 things that make Cape Town the greatest city in the world:

Cape Town Windsurfing

Cape Town is well known for having some of the best windsurfing spots in the world. Cape Town is ideally situated at the south-western tip of South Africa, receiving great Atlantic swells all over the coastline and miles of beaches that stretch all the way from Cape Town’s city down to the famous Cape of Good Hope. This is one of the windiest places in the world, enabling sensational windsurfing conditions. From big wave riding and pure freestyling to perfect conditions for beginners. 

Keep reading to find out our top windsurfing spots in Cape Town:

Sunset Beach is located along the West Coast just outside of the CBD.  There is plenty of parking and space to set up here. This spot offers perfect down-the-line wave riding, and there are several peaks along the beach. It is always lighter on the inside and can be a bit bigger on the outside. South Easterlies are cross offshore at this spot.

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Big Bay is a perfect spot for jumping. The spot has a big car park and grassy rigging area. There is also a café and changing facilities. The wave is more peaky to the right and cleaner but smaller to the left. The swell here is always a little bigger than Sunset Beach. 

© Octagon

Melkbosstrand is a massive stretch of beach hosting several different peaks along its length, so don’t just stick to the spot in front of the car park, there are many more uncrowded spots if you head downwind. The water is a bit colder here but it is also more exposed to swell than Sunset Beach.

Just one hour out of Cape Town is where you will find one of the most perfect windsurfing spots in Africa, Langebaan Lagoon. This lagoon offers the perfect spot for beginners to learn to windsurf as well as those looking to improve. The wind is super consistent from November to March and the lagoon is vast and free of obstacles. There is an awesome windsurf centre right on the shores of the lagoon that offers instruction and rentals. Going to Langebaan is a must when coming to Cape Town to windsurf!

Dining in Cape Town

Dining in Cape Town is always a memorable experience when visiting this incredible city. The restaurants offer the freshest ingredients, beautiful interiors, breathtaking views and world-class wines.

The exceptional chefs that call Cape Town home experiment with a range of flavours to create world-class international fusion menus. With hundreds of world-class dining options, it would be difficult to choose the best. However,  Cape Town’s favourite, The Test Kitchen, was recently named the best dining destination in South Africa by EatOut magazine, continuing a six-year winning streak. With a plethora of award-winning restaurants in Cape Town, you will be spoiled for choice!

Cape Town Beaches

The blend of two oceans namely, the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, offers travellers to Cape Town the choice between two different styles of beach that are divided by a 1000m high peninsula.

Cape Town has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world and something to offer everyone. It is no surprise that South Africa was one of the first countries outside of Europe to earn blue flag status for some of its beaches. 

In order to achieve Blue Flag status, beaches must excel in the fields of safety, cleanliness, provision of amenities and maintenance of environmental standards. Some of these incredible Blue Flag beaches include Bikini Beach, Muizenberg Beach, Fish Hoek Beach, Llandudno, Camps Bay Beach, Clifton 4th Beach and Melkbosstrand.

Museums in Cape Town

Cape Town is a cultural mecca for Africa, here you can find 350 West African gold artifacts and over one and a half million specimens of scientific importance. One of the oldest and greatest museums is the Iziko Museum – it was founded in 1825, is situated in the Company’s Garden and houses over a million artifacts ranging from fossils and Stone Age tools to dinosaur exhibits. Make sure you visit the Whale Well, where among the giant whale bones and life-size casts of marine creatures, musical recitals are often held. A must for families.

© Bruce Anderson

Also just opened in Cape Town is the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. This state-of-the-art museum is now the largest museum of modern art on the African continent. 

What makes the space more spectacular is that it used to be an old grain silo that was built in the 1920s, and was also once the tallest building in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has now been ingeniously redesigned into an incredible architectural dream.

Cape Town’s Wines

Cape Town is a favourite destination for wine connoisseurs from around the world, and some of the best and oldest wine farms in the region can be found in and around Cape Town.

This city boasts a wine-making tradition that spans more than 300 years and the Constantia Valley and its surrounds is the oldest wine-producing region in the Southern Hemisphere. The Groot Constantia estate is the oldest wine producing estates in South Africa and dates back to 1777.

Today Groot Constantia produces an array of award-winning whites and reds that are exported around the world. The farm also includes two top class restaurants. 

Hiking and mountain biking in Cape Town

With a stunning mountain chain that runs throughout the peninsula along with hectares of forest and with vast nature reserves right on its doorstep, Cape Town is a hiker’s and mountain biker’s dream!

There is an abundance of hiking and mountain biking trails in the Cape Town. Without a doubt, the best-known mountain is Table Mountain. There is a network of over 550 walks on Table Mountain alone. In a few hours, one can walk up the Platteklip Gorge, which has well-maintained stone steps to the top of the mountain to admire the incredible view over the city.

For a longer stay, go on the luxurious three-day Hoerikwaggo Table Mountain Trail. This hiking trail is guided, portered and catered for, and links the cultural history of Cape Town city with the natural heritage of Table Mountain. 

Get to Cape Town in 2018 for a windsurf holiday you will never forget. Contact us to help you plan your dream holiday!