On the Road

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.

With Linda Jaquet, long-time marvellous human being and current mayor of Prince Albert, in the front garden of Fransie Pienaar Museum, November 2018

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!

Prince Albert Art Gallery

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Cape Town Foodfest, October 2024

Culinary capital of the world: Cape Town; top ten foodie cities; four nights in Cape Town; getting there: turn left at Bloemfontein, plus some 1980s nostalgia; oysters at Mount Nellie; three great restaurants: one pan-Asian, one Italian and one uber-fancy;  the bottom line – exciting food that’s still exceptionally good value 

I’m itching to post the fourth and final instalment of This is the House that Roy and Verne Built – especially as we’ve finally moved in: O frabjous day, Calloo! Callay! (Here’s a link to number three.) But Roy and I had four such enjoyable weeks in South Africa a couple of months ago that it would be a pity not to get them on the record.

Cape Town, Culinary Capital of the World

Cape Town was recently crowned the best city in the world for food – can you believe it? That’s according to Condé Nast Traveller’s 2024 Readers’ Choice Awards. And the announcement was coincidentally made on 23 October, just as Roy and I were boarding a Singapore Airways flight from Perth WA to South Africa’s Mother City.

Top Ten Foodie Cities

Here’s the world’s top ten foodie cities, as voted by Condé Nast readers: (If this was one of those moronic Facebook posts, I’d have to divulge to all and sundry that Milan is the only one I haven’t yet been to.)

  1. Cape Town, South Africa
  2. Milan, Italy
  3. Valencia, Spain
  4. Tokyo, Japan
  5. Porto, Portugal
  6. Hong Kong, China
  7. Bangkok, Thailand
  8. Rome, Italy
  9. Singapore
  10. Sydney, Australia
Cape Town, Table Mountain
Table Mountain from Tamboerskloof on a clear day

Four Nights in Cape Town

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Cape Town with the Campbells Part Three: The City and Constantia, 1-2 February

Summer in the city; activist art in Parliament Lane; MCC and munchies at the Mount Nelly; exquisite Italian at Villa 47; beach babes at Table View; vineyard lunch at Chef’s Warehouse Beau Constantia

Another flawless morning dawned in Cape Town – how lucky we were with the weather this whole time! From our holiday apartment at 27 Leeuwen Street, it was only a short walk to Greenmarket Square.

Not having visited the CBD for some years, it was initially a shock to see refugees encamped against the walls of venerable St George’s Cathedral.

The character of the market, too, seemed to have changed considerably. I remembered a more eclectic selection of wares; now it was mainly African crafts and curios.

As the sign in the photo above reflects, the foreigners fear for their lives in the townships – or “the community”- where it seems that the tougher life becomes, the worse the zenophobia.

Ellie, the shopping machine, in Greenmarket Square

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Cape Town with the Campbells Part Two: Wine Tour, 31 January

Delaire Graff for delish wine-tasting and decadent diamonds; Boschendal for Dutch-gabled perfection; Franschhoek for a fabulous lunch and a motor museum

Accommodation agent Stay Amazing – through which we’d booked the Cape Town apartment (see Part One) – also operates wine tours.

Verne, Ellie and Steve

Over dinner the previous night at La Perla – our first decent meal in Cape Town – our Capetonian foodie friend Karin Jenkins had suggested  a one-day itinerary to introduce Californians Ellie and Steve to the Cape Winelands.

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Cape Town with the Campbells Part One: 29-30 January

Staying Amazing in the Mother City; horrible hire-car from the Woodford wallies; dire dinner at the V&A Waterfront; Camps Bay, Llandudno and the 12 Apostles; seal-smooching at scenic Hout Bay; climbing Cape Point; Italian feast at La Perla, Seapoint

You would never visit South Africa for the first time and not go to Cape Town, the Mother City. So, after an equally unmissable safari escapade together at Nambiti Big 5 Game Reserve, Ellie, Steve, Roy and I boarded a two-hour afternoon flight to Cape Town from Durban’s King Shaka International Airport.

Through Stay Amazing, we’d booked a three-bedroom apartment at 27 Leeuwen Street. Level 16 is the penthouse level – look at our view of Table Mountain!

Incredibly, the sky stayed this blue for three days!

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Nambiti Big 5 Game Reserve with the Campbells, 24-27 January

For our Californian friends Ellie and Steve Campbell’s first African adventure, going on safari was a must. Fortunately, KwaZulu-Natal province has some of the country’s best game reserves for spotting the Big 5* (leopard, lion, rhino, elephant and buffalo), and they’re all a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from our Umhlanga Rocks home.

Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is one we’ve visited occasionally over the years, and possibly the most popular; Phinda perhaps the most high-end; iSimangaliso (previously the St Lucia Wetland Park) is on the Elephant Coast near the Mozambique border; as a child, I went there with my parents.

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Brahman Hills and Verne’s Big Birthday Bash, 17-22 January 2020

Several good hotels and spas are to be found in the green and pleasant Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. The newest and shiniest of these is Brahman Hills, designed for weddings and conventions but also geared for girly getaways.

A few days after Verne’s Big Birthday Bash* at the Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga, sister Dale and our mutual BFF Julie tore me from the bosom of assembled family and friends for a magnificent Midlands Meander  birthday treat. (Click here, here, here, here and here – what, so many? – for posts on previous meanderings.)

(*Scroll down to the end for a whole lot of party photos, if you feel so inclined. Plus a gratuitous video of the author busting a move.)

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KZN Midlands: Indigo Fields Bush Spa – 22-24 May

Just two hours from Durban in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands is Indigo Fields Bush Spa, a unique and world-class destination that I would recommend to anyone who likes an idyllic natural environment, a lot of pampering and oodles of warm, discreet and personalised service.

Seriously, what do you give such a thoroughly spoilt man as Roy for his 68th birthday? Such men already have everything they need or want – or, at least, everything in my limited price range.

It can only be an experience,  preferably one he hasn’t had before. So, having heard good things about Indigo Fields, I surprised my husband with a two-night mid-week stay there. (Click here for spa and accommodation packages.)

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Big 5 Nambiti Game Reserve, 18-21 November 2018

Going to “the bush” – meaning a game reserve or something similar – is a popular pastime for South Africans. How did Roy and I get so lucky as to crack the nod to Idwala Private Lodge in the Big 5 Nambiti Game Reserve?

Well, our friends Brigid and Clive have been coming here for more than ten years. They own a fractional share of the lodge, which they generally use to host family and close friends.

This time, when one of the five villas became available for the last few nights of their stay, they invited us to join them there.

Verne and Roy on Idwala Lodge’s viewing platform

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