Cape Town: Hop On – Hop Off & Beau Constantia

I always try to do one of the hop on – hop off bus tours in cities that offer them and had never done the Cape Town one before, so was excited to do so when we visited recently. It really is the best way to see a city and with a variety of ticket options and excursions you get the best overview of a city on the bus, as well as special walking and water tours with both 1-day and 2-day ticket combo offers.

The Cape Town options include table mountain, a canal cruise, a night tour, a walking tour, a township tour and a bus & helicopter package from as little as R40, to R1650 for the heli option – a really affordable way to see the most in a day is to get a combo ticket for R170 and you can then jump on any of the red (city to table mountain) or blue (mini peninsula) route buses. There’s guided commentary (you get your own set of earphones) and I learned so much about a city I have been to numerous times that I never knew before, which is very cool.

We started at the Waterfront outside the Aquarium and caught a blue route bus out to Constantia and then switched to the free purple route wine tour bus and headed to Groot Constantia Wine Estate, for a lazy tasting under the trees. This wine estate is over 300 years old and along with 2 beautiful restaurants – Jonkershuis & Simon’s – there are cellar tours, a museum and a gallery too. It’s conveniently open 7 days a week .

We didn’t stay for lunch, but jumped back on the purple route bus and headed further along the route to Beau Constantia – a more modern take on a wine farm with the most magnificent views from the restaurant which is set up over various levels, offering tables as well as outside couches for a more informal luncheon – all beautifully decorated with minimal colours and finishes – truly breathtaking! I also LOVE their wine labels – too cool!
Oh, and make sure to use the loo – the best views ever!

{pics above from the Beau Constantia website}

After a very lazy lunch (their menu is made up of starter portion dishes and sushi only), we headed back towards Cape Town on the next tour bus (the last one from the wine farm departs at 5pm) and meandered our way from Constantia through to Hout Bay, on to Camps Bay and then Clifton and through to Bantry Bay, Sea Point, Three Anchor Bay, Green Point, Mouille Point and finally back to where we had started at the V&A Waterfront.

It was an amazing day out and I highly recommend Beau Constantia for an amazing wine farm experience.

{pics above by me}

Check out more of my Cape Town Trip posts here & look out for more in the next 2 weeks:
Taste of Cape Town