Cape Town, South Africa · Africa

7 ideal things to do in Cape Town

The short list, pulled out of the long essay. No opening hours, because they change and I would only get them wrong — just what is worth your morning, roughly when to turn up, and where I have wasted time so you don’t have to.

By Ščenza

Last checked November 4, 2025

1. 01

   Lion's Head at sunrise

   Between Table Mountain and Signal Hill·Ordinary weekday dawn, not the full moon

   An hour of walking, spiralling round a 669-metre cone, and at the top you get Table Mountain on one side, the Atlantic on the other and the city sitting in between. Capetonians do this before work — I found that out by being overtaken near the summit by a woman already dressed for a meeting, who was not out of breath. The full-moon climbs are a local ritual and correspondingly packed. A plain Tuesday is better.

2. 02

   Table Mountain by the Platteklip Gorge trail

   Tafelberg Road, above the city bowl·Start early; the gorge holds no shade at all

   The direct route up the front of the mountain, first climbed in 1503 and still the least ambiguous way to the top: a staircase of a gorge, about two and a half hours, and no shade anywhere in it. The plateau on top is a separate country — 1,084 metres at Maclear's Beacon, fynbos in every direction, and the cloud they call the tablecloth arriving over the edge without asking anyone. Take the cable car down if your knees have opinions.

3. 03

   Kirstenbosch and the Boomslang canopy walkway

   Eastern foot of Table Mountain, Newlands·Spring for the proteas; summer evenings for the concerts

   Established in 1913 on the back slope of the mountain and planted only with indigenous species, which sounds like a restriction until you learn that Table Mountain alone carries 2,285 of them. The Centenary Tree Canopy Walkway, which everybody calls the Boomslang, is a curved steel ribbon that lifts you into the crowns of the trees and flexes just enough that one person in every group announces that it flexes.

4. 04

   Robben Island

   Ferry from the V&A Waterfront·Book well ahead; the swell decides the rest

   Half a day, most of it spent on a boat and a bus, and the part that matters lasts about fifteen minutes: the limestone quarry where the prisoners worked, and then the cell. Former political prisoners guide the prison section, which is why the tone is right and why this is not the place to be taking photographs of everything. Crossings get cancelled when the sea is up, so leave a spare day in the trip rather than a spare hour.

5. 05

   The District Six Museum

   Buitenkant Street, city centre·An hour, longer if you talk to the guides

   In the 1970s some sixty thousand people were removed from the neighbourhood on the edge of the centre and the buildings were bulldozed. The ground is still largely empty and you notice that on the drive in without understanding why. The museum is essentially one hall with a street map painted across the floor, and former residents have written on it in pen where their houses stood. It is the least grand museum I have stood in and it undid me faster than any of them.

6. 06

   Bo-Kaap on foot, early

   The lower slopes of Signal Hill·Before nine; this is a residential street

   Cape Malay quarter on the hill, with the Auwal — the oldest mosque in the country, from 1794 — and the steep painted terraces that everyone photographs. Worth knowing beforehand: the colours are a late-twentieth-century idea rather than an eighteenth-century one, a detail no caption anywhere seems to include. People live behind those doors, and by mid-morning the street is being used as a film set, so come at eight and behave as though you are in somebody's front garden, because you are.

7. 07

   Boulders Beach penguins and the drive to Cape Point

   Simon's Town, the False Bay side of the peninsula·A full day; save the penguins for last

   African penguins turned up at Boulders in 1982 as two breeding pairs and there are a few thousand now, watched from the Foxy Beach boardwalks that put you a couple of metres from birds that are officially critically endangered and visibly unconcerned about it. Pair it with the peninsula drive down to Cape Point. The baboons near the gate will open an unlocked car door, the signs saying so are not decorative, and one of my rental cars could confirm this.