Cape Town

Cape Town is the legislative capital and the largest city of South Africa. It is situated on Table Bay at the foot of Table Mountain and its three ridges at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula. It has a typically Mediterranean climate with winters being cool and wet, and summers being warm and dry.

As the mother city of South Africa, Cape Town offers the visitor a great combination of scenic beauty, outdoors and cultural experiences.

You have the opportunity to spend the entire day on Table Mountain. Spectacular views of the surrounding area will accompany you no matter which way you turn. If this is not for you, take a drive along Chapman's Peak Drive, acclaimed as one of the worlds most scenic drives.

The city centre focuses on the Public Gardens, a remnant of the original settlement, and on the Houses of Parliament. The Castle, begun in 1666 and completed in 1677, was a seat of government in the 17th century and is now a museum. Cape Town is the headquarters of several banks and insurance companies and has theatres, museums, and an orchestra.

Cape Town's industries today include food processing, especially fruit and vegetable canning, wine production, fishing, clothing, publishing, and engineering.

The eastern plateau region (including Johannesburg) has a dry, sunny climate in winter with maximum temperatures around 20ºC and crisp nights with temperatures dropping to around 5ºC. Between October and April there are late-afternoon showers often accompanied by spectacular thunder and lightning, but it rarely gets unpleasantly hot. Heavy hailstorms cause quite a lot of damage each year. It can, however, get very hot in the Karoo (the semi-desert heart of all three Cape provinces) and the far north (the Kalahari). The Western Cape has dry sunny summers with maximum temperatures around 26ºC. It is often windy, however, and the southeasterly 'Cape Doctor' can reach gale force. Winters can get cold, with average minimum temperatures of around 5ºC, and maximum temperatures of around 17'C, with occasional snow on the higher peaks.
The coast north from the Cape becomes progressively drier and hotter. Along the
south coast the weather is temperate, but the east coast becomes increasingly tropical the further north you go. The Transkei region and KwaZulu/Natal can be hot and unpleasantly humid in summer, although the highlands are still pleasant; this is also a summer rainfall area. The Mpumalanga and Northern Province lowveld get very hot in summer, when there are spectacular storms. In winter the days are sunny and warm.