Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel

Mount Nelson goes by the Nellie, and its vintage sidecar carries the name on its number plate, in the same pink as the hotel. The colour came in 1918, when its Italian manager, Aldo Renato, painted the building to celebrate peace at the end of the First World War. The house underneath is older: Sir Hamilton Ross built it as a family homestead in 1843, and it has been a hotel since 1899. The pink is trimmed with white balconies and grey shutters, with a fountain ringed in flowers out in front, and nine acres of garden run round it, palms and oleanders along the brick drive and Table Mountain's cliffs above the trees. Afternoon tea is served in the Lounge, on a checkerboard floor among potted palms, from a tea-and-cake menu of some 30 pages, which explains the resident tea sommelier.

Recommended for couples who want a grand hotel of the old school in town, and for families, who get the same hotel with a children's club attached. The club is free for four- to twelve-year-olds at weekends, from ten until five and closed from one to two, and daily until six over the festive season. That leaves the grown-ups free for a lesson from the resident coach on the floodlit tennis courts, or the sidecar out to the winelands. The family pool is oversized and heated, there are connecting rooms, and babysitting comes on request. Guests praise the staff, and name several of them. Table Mountain and the beaches are a drive away, and the day can end at Amura, the seafood restaurant. Children have an afternoon tea menu of their own, which spares them the 30 pages.