Travel Postcard: 48 hours in Cape Town

By Wendell Roelf

CAPE TOWN (Reuters Life!) - Got 48 hours to explore Cape Town? Reuters correspondents with local knowledge help visitors get the most from a short visit.

FRIDAY

6 p.m. - Kick off your stay with a Long Island tea cocktail at Café Caprice (37 Victoria Road, Camps Bay, +27 21 438 8315), enjoying a gentle sea breeze a stone's throw from the sandy beach and its swaying palm trees. Frequented by the city's beautiful and trendy, if you're lucky you might rub shoulders with celebrities like singer Robbie Williams or actor Leonardo di Caprio. For something even more swanky, try Riboville (130 Adderely Street), which occupies four stories in a former bank building. The 125-year old building exudes an air of refined elegance, with original marble walls, wooden lifts and brass doors. Wine cognoscenti will enjoy the selection of over 650 bottles of wine stored in the former vault.

7:30 p.m. - Hop in a sedan taxi plying its trade in the inner-city or call Rikki's (0861745547) to book a ride in one their brightly-liveried traditional London cabs and cruise to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. Built around Cape Town's working harbor, where seals are a common sight, the mega-mall offers something for everyone. Having whet your appetite earlier, why not grab a succulent Ostrich (the world's largest flightless bird) fillet with red wine sauce at Belthazar Restaurant (Shop 153, +27 21 421 3753) or for those with a wilder palate, a game kebab typically featuring meat cuts from Wildebeest, Kudu, Eland and Impala buck. Also situated at the V&A is Nelson Mandela Gateway (+27 21 4134217), where you can buy tickets (150 rand p/p return, usually six tours a day ending 3 p.m. daily, including Sundays and holidays) to visit Robben Island Museum and see the cell which held South Africa's first black state leader for 26 years. The island is a World Heritage site and a former leper colony.

10 p.m. - Jazz lovers might try the lively entertainment at Manenberg's, one of the city's top jazz venues specializing in South African jazz popularized overseas by artists such as pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and trumpeter Hugh Masekela. Join other jazz aficionados at 105, Clocktower Precinct or call +27 21 4215639. If jazz is not your fancy, take a trip to Green Point, a mix of pubs, bars and restaurants and famed for its gay scene. Try the Bronx action bar (+27 21 4199216, 22 Somerset Road) with its retro-1970's disco lights and pumping music that will keep you gyrating until the early hours of the morning. The club is an institution in the pink heartland of Cape Town.

SATURDAY

9 a.m. - If the weather forecast is hot and sunny, hire a car for the 40 km (25 mile) ride to Boulder's Beach, stopping along the way to watch the whales cavort in False Bay, before arriving at your destination and mingling with penguins. Or stay in the city centre and soldier on towards the Castle of Good Hope (Buitenkant and Strand streets), a pentagonal fortification built by the Dutch between 1666-1679 and South Africa's oldest surviving building. Try to catch a ghostly glimpse of Anne Barnard, the castle's former first lady whose apparition is said to haunt certain sections of the ramparts, with daily guided tours offered to the dungeons and torture rooms.

10 a.m. - Trundle slowly across Buitenkant street and make your way towards the centrally-located Green Market Square, where you can haggle with traders selling a wide selection of Africa's arts and curios. Pick up an exquisitely carved chess set, hand-made sandals or decorative beaded necklaces at reasonable prices. Along the way pass the classic music venue City Hall (Darling Street) and the Mutual Heights residential complex. This 91 meter (300 ft) art deco building, with carved stone vignettes depicting various images of the country's colonial history and its indigenous tribes, was the continent's tallest building after Egpyt's pyramids when completed in 1939.