Another beautiful day dawns here in the Southern hemisphere – today not a cloud in the sky.  We dawdle over our coffee, enjoying the view from the apartment balcony….

…make an early morning run to Spar for breakfast foods, then finally get ourselves out and over to the HoHo bus for our ride out to Constantia – the oldest wine producing region in the Western Cape.  We had timed it out to try to make the 10am bus, but the elevators in the building sort of put a cramp on our style.  They are slow and busy and take forever to come and go during busy times –obviously 9:30 was one of those busy times.  Not a big deal as there is a bus every 20 minutes, if we are a little later, it won’t kill us. 

Arriving at the bus office, there must be 75 to 100 people standing outside waiting for a bus.  What?  Oh this is going to be torture.  Both the Red and the Blue both arrive at the same time, and we manage to just hop right on the Blue bus – without the hordes.  Guess that was a chartered tour or something – but no matter – we are almost all alone on the open air top floor enjoying the sights, the sun and the breeze as we make our way south out of the CBD.

The mountain views are stellar today – as you can see from our perch above the traffic.

Arriving in Constantia a little before 11, we head straight to La Parada, a restaurant situated right at the bus transfer point. Perfect place for lunch – and the only reasonably affordable place in the area too – plus a good tapas menu, not just all heavy mains.  They aren’t open yet, but a waiter, Lovell, is outside and invites us in, sits us outside on the patio under the shade of a huge umbrella and takes our drink orders, letting us know the kitchen will open soon.  Perfect. It’s gorgeous out here, surrounding by vineyards and mountains.  We could sit here all day.  After a little kerfluffle with a keg that won’t cooperate, Ed finally gets a beer – in an adorable glass – and we order our tapas of peppadew poppers, spicy fish bites and fried cauliflower.  Perfect little snacks to line our stomach for our upcoming wine tastings!

There are 2 wineries we can walk to from the restaurant, and one, Groot Constantia, the oldest winery in S. Africa, that we can reach on the HoHo wine route bus.  We choose to head to Groot, because its on the bus route (might as well use the tickets to their full advantage) and because it is the oldest after all.  It takes about 10 minutes to drive down there past numerous other wineries and gated living areas.  This is high dollar here – as Lovell has explained to us over our lunch. Arriving at Groot, we wander through the trees and walkways leading to the 2 restaurants and to the little museum that is a recreation of the original manor house here.

It is a gorgeous property, all old colonial style, with adobe walls and beautiful tile work. The museum is a little bit of a rip off – it’s cheap enough – but not much to look at (no photos – of course!).  Outside in the courtyard there is a display of barrels and old carriages – and a really cool plaque explaining that behind the wall are 12 bottles of 2009 Grand Constance wine to be opened on 2 February 2109 to celebrate 450 years of S. African wine industry.  That’s neat! 

Otherwise, well, underwhelming.  Their wine tastings are on the hour and focus mostly on red wines. Not.  We can wander through the vineyards, which is fine, but we were expecting more tastings or at least a bar or something to try their wines.  Oh well – it is beautiful and we did get to walk off lunch a little bit! 

So, back on the bus we go – hopping off at the transfer point and walking down to Beau Constantia – which is even more beautiful than Groot.  As we walk down to the winery, the lush green views stretch out for miles – all the way out to the mountains far in the distance. Their wine tasting room is set up on a ridge above their vineyards with more spectacular views.  The website had recommended we make reservations, but not knowing our schedule we figured we’d just wander in.  Could have been a tactical error as the place was packed and the server was a little put off that we didn’t have reservations.  He showed us up to this secluded little comfy couch seating area saying that’s the only place he had and making out like it was awful.  No way! It was perfect – we loved it and told him so – and thus began an excellent long and drawn out (but we have nothing to do!) wine tasting and huge cheese and meat platter (that Izzy our waiter talked us into when we were only going order a small portion of the meat platter).

Absolutely fantastic!  The setting, the wines, the food.  It was far more than we needed but so good – we ate every single morsel.  A totally fun afternoon – capped off with the best view ever from a restroom!  Yes, that is the window in the men’s and lady’s room!  It’s the loo with a view! Great!

Back at the HoHo stop, there is a bus waiting and we hop aboard, grabbing the cat bird seats at the very front of the upper level.  From here we have a birds-eye view of our entire route.  Our circuit includes Hout Bay, passing one of the original townships for all the displaced Blacks in this area, then back up North, around the back of Table Mountain with such beautiful views and such a clear sunny day.

Turning toward the coast once again, we skirt around past Sandy Cove and on up toward Camp’s Bay with stunning views of Lion’s Head and the 12 apostles.

Camp’s Bay is not quite as crazy as it was yesterday, but it is still a bustling little beach town.  Oh – and did we mention how Ferrari crazy they are here?  This is the 4^th or 5^th one we’ve seen in 2 days! 

As we are driving through Sea Point we are treated to the landing of a hang glider coming off of Signal hill.  Had no idea they landed here – quite a fun little surprise.

Then it is back to V&A, passing the old light house and hopping off at the Aquarium to walk back to the apartment, past the directional signs pointing to the South Pole!  That’s where we’re headed in a couple of days!

We are still so stuffed, that we decide to stay in for dinner tonight. No sense going out and wasting money on food we really don’t want. Instead we make a Spar run and end up with this great mixed salad with tons of chicken and oil and balsamic dressing – perfect for our stuffed little tummies.   The rest of the night is spent on the balcony watching the sunset and reorganizing our suitcases for our move to the Southern Sun Cullinan and then to SH Diana the next morning.