Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Our amazing friend Nollie is a teacher at the Curro High School around the corner from where we are staying. The Curro branch also has a daycare and she arranged for the kids to go for Thursday and Friday. Seriously. Two whole days. With no kids. In Cape Town. Dream come true. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. But I also love going places without them. So now the question became what to do.

With the help of Zanelle we settled on the city bus tour for the first day. We figured it was an easy way to see the downtown area without the stress of having to drive or park. She recommended the blue line which takes you around Table Mountain by the coast. We wandered around in a pedestrian square hosting a market. We passed through the oldest wine estate in Cape Town, Constantia. We hopped off and wandered around Hout’s Bay and had sushi lunch in Camps Bay.

Day two we figured when in wine country, better visit the wine estates. Conre and Janelie gave us amazing suggestions and we set off. Our first stop for the day was Simonsig. Simonsig is known as the first wine estate to make bubbly in SA. They’re very sure to say that it is NOT champagne (but really it’s the same). At Simonsig they give you a sheet listing all of their wines, you select five you would like to sample and then you work through them at your own pace. We also did a short cellar tour to see how they process the grapes. Our first stop cost a whopping $3 each,

Next on the list was Brenaissance where they do a pizza and wine pairing – four different wines paired with four different slices of pizzas. We followed it up with a nougat/fudge/wine pairing at JC Le Roux. Seriously delicious.

We had time for one more stop before collecting the kids so we headed to Conre’s favourite stop and we were so glad we did. Delheim estates is tucked in behind another wine estate but it was so worth the journey off the main road. It is a cute little cottage covered in vines set in an opening of trees overlooking the vines growing in the valley. The cellar where they do the tastings was full so we just ordered a glass before ending our wine tour day.

Note: The kids loved the daycare – C got to run around, play with blocks and paint a picture (his recap) and M got along perfectly as well (their recap).

 

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