High-end city lifestyle

There’s as much diversity and cultural richness in South Africa’s urban scene as there is with its wildlife, exemplified by the glamorous city at the foot of Table Mountain. Cape Town takes many first-time visitors to Africa by surprise, offering a scarcely believable backdrop of contemporary villas and umbrella pines climbing mountain passes above beachfringed bays teeming with marine life. Between the city towers and Table Bay, the V&A Waterfront is one of Africa’s most popular tourist attractions, a pedestrianised complex of craft markets, boutiques, restaurants and bars.

Staying in one of the area’s landmark hotels is a treat, placing the busker-soundtracked plazas, cruise boats and cocktail menus on your doorstep, and One & Only Cape Town ’s rooms and suites built on artificial islands at the waterfront are prime marina property. Guests can explore the waterways by stand-up paddleboard, dine on Nobu’s signature black cod miso at Africa’s only branch of the Japanese-Peruvian chain, and join township-born sommelier Luvo Ntezo for an introduction to Cape wines. Meanwhile the nearby Silo Hotel is becoming a global icon with its 28 rooms and suites atop the Zeitz MOCAA (Museum of Contemporary Art Africa), a grain silo reimagined by visionary British architect Thomas Heatherwick to house 80 galleries of multimedia creativity. South Africa’s 370-year-old Mother City may be the country’s oldest city, but it’s in bustling Johannesburg that you can feel Africa’s exhilarating 21st-century pulse. Like the continent’s answer

Between the city towers and Table Bay, the V&A Waterfront is one of Africa’s most popular tourist attractions

to New York, the City of Gold attracts migrants from far and wide as it once did prospectors, while well-heeled locals patronise glitzy nightspots and malls. Among the jacaranda-lined avenues of the wealthy northern suburbs, Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa is a luxury haven of plush suites, gardens full of native plants and languorous afternoon teas in the Piano Lounge.