Where to Stay in Cape Town and the Winelands

Cape Town sits in a bowl beneath Table Mountain, between the mountain and the Atlantic, and where to stay in it begins with which side of the mountain. On the city side is the City Bowl, the flat centre and the slopes that climb from it towards the cliffs, with Kloof Street's restaurants and bars at the bottom. On the ocean side are the beaches. Behind it, Constantia keeps its old wine estates. Over two passes inland lie Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, which want a hotel of their own.

We have been twice, both times in late summer, and would give the Cape a week at the least, split down the middle: a few days in the city, then a few in the Winelands, where there are more estates worth a visit than any few days will hold. So this is two decisions and two hotels: one under the mountain, and one among the vines, so that nobody has to drive back over a pass after the last tasting.

The City Bowl

For a first visit, the City Bowl is the base. It has Kloof Street, with the restaurants and, we thought, some great bars, and the mountain is right there: up by Platteklip Gorge, or by the cableway from Tafelberg Road, a short drive away. Welgelegen is two minutes' walk from Kloof Street, two Victorian family houses of 1890 made into fourteen rooms round a leafy courtyard and a plunge pool. There is no restaurant, which with Kloof Street that close is good judgement, and at five the port is poured in the courtyard lounge, on the house.

Mount Nelson is the grand version. It has been a hotel since 1899 and pink since 1918, when its manager painted it to celebrate the end of the First World War, and it stands in nine acres of garden under the mountain's cliffs. It is also the one in town to bring children to: at weekends a club for four- to twelve-year-olds is free, the family pool is heated, and there is an afternoon tea menu for children, which spares them the adults' thirty pages. Gorgeous George is down in the centre on St George's Mall, a pedestrianised street, in two heritage buildings where the pipes have been painted pink and run along raw concrete ceilings. On the roof, a small glass-sided pool sits beside Gigi, a bar Cape Town comes up to as well as the guests, and the V&A Waterfront is a fifteen-minute walk.

The Atlantic Seaboard

Round the mountain on the ocean side the coast runs from Sea Point past Clifton's four beaches to Camps Bay, under the Twelve Apostles, which is where we would go for a beach day, with Victoria Road's restaurants and bars at the back of the sand. Ellerman House stands above Bantry Bay on the slopes of Lion's Head, a seaside mansion of 1906 hung with more than two centuries of South African art. Its Wine Gallery has one wall made of soil from Cape wine farms, and a corkscrew of bottles spiralling up through the middle. Clifton's beaches are within walking distance. The house takes guests from twelve, and families with younger children go to its villas instead: one has an infinity pool, the other a cinema.

Future Found Sanctuary is the far end of the Seaboard and the wildest address on it, inside the national park on Table Mountain's southern slopes, in the forest above Hout Bay. Its villas have steep gables in dark metal, lit at their glazed ends against the trees. Three of the pools are heated, and the fourth is filled with spring water off the mountain at 10 to 12°C, which is colder than the Atlantic in February. There is no bar, but every room has its own gin and tonic station, and Hout Bay's harbour, for seafood and the boats to Seal Island, is six kilometres by road.

Constantia

Behind the mountain, in the Southern Suburbs, The Cellars-Hohenort is for anyone who wants the garden and the wine estates without leaving the city. It brings together the wine cellars of a farm granted in 1693 and a white-gabled manor of 1906, in nine acres with more than 2,500 roses and a camphor grove planted in 1773. A shuttle runs to the V&A Waterfront every day, fifteen minutes away, and the two pools are heated to 24 to 26 degrees all year, which in a city with a sea this fresh is a real point in their favour. Families can take the Liz McGrath Villa, by the herb garden, which sleeps six.

Stellenbosch and Franschhoek

The Winelands are the second half of the week, over the passes. Stellenbosch is a university town small enough to walk, but its estates are on the outskirts and need a car. Franschhoek is a village in a valley ringed by mountains, with cellar doors and restaurants down its main street, and the Wine Tram runs between the estates around it. Delaire Graff Estate sits at the top of the Helshoogte Pass between the two, about six kilometres from Stellenbosch and twenty minutes from Franschhoek, which makes it the one bed that serves both. It has seventeen places to sleep and eighteen swimming pools, one for each of the sixteen lodges, and some 400 works from Laurence Graff's collection, among them Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl, the original of a print that was among the best-selling of the twentieth century. The estate makes its own wine, so the first tasting of the trip needs nobody to drive.

When

November to April is the dry, warm half of the year, and the vines are heaviest towards the harvest, which runs from January to March. June to August is the winter, when cold fronts come in off the Atlantic and the Winelands go quiet. The sea gets no say in any of it: about 20-21°C at its warmest, in February, and fresher every other month, which is why a heated pool counts for more here than it would anywhere warmer.