Prince Albert, November 2024 – Top 10 reasons to visit
Prince Albert’s marvellous mayor and cultural characters; getting to Prince Albert; staying with Linda and André; the Swartberg Hotel and bobotie; charming townscape and dream houses; bin art; local produce: unrivalled EVOO, unpasteurised dairy and unmissable lamb; Striking Metal and Karoo Looms, plus samoosas to die for; you can check out any time you like…
Before I go on, the Prince Albert restaurant featured above is called The Rude Chef, and we hear that the owner can be blunt at times. But she was as sweet as pie when we had dinner there with Linda and André on our first night… and that was despite the electrical blackout that mostly came and sometimes went.
I’ve blogged about Prince Albert before: click here for my 2018 story, if you like. But here are my current Top 10 reasons to visit this Great Karoo dorp.
#1 Its Marvellous Mayor
Apart from its being so exceptionally karaktervol (full of character, or even characters), what takes Roy and me back there is that our friends Linda and André retired to the town more than 20 years ago after their long careers in the South African diplomatic corps. And now, after two decades of service to the community, Linda is the hard-working Mayor of Prince Albert.
For her sins, she might say, having fortitudinously steered the town through the vicissitudes of central governmental ineptitude in general and its woeful handling of the dreadful COVID-crisis in particular. (My words, not hers. And though as an old friend I’m naturally biased, it has to be said that she’s a bloody marvellous human being.)
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#2 Culture Vultures
Apart from serving the working farming community around it, Prince Albert is a thriving tourism magnet. Its population includes a lot of sometimes-retired “professors and experts in botany, anthropology, astronomy, gastronomy, art, film-making and photography”, according to getaway.co.za. Many of them contribute to the town’s impressive list of cultural events: apart from the annual Prince Albert Town Festival in April, there are festivals of olives, books, films and art, plus winter schools for artists, jewellers, writers and chefs. This is a busy little place!
