Cape Winelands

The Stellenbosch wine route has 106 cellars. The Stellenbosch Village Museum is a group of four carefully restored and furnished buildings representing the major stylistic periods of the previous three centuries. Here one can move through these time periods in a matter of minutes, experiencing fascinating architecture, and getting a glimpse of life in the early development of the Cape. Today was a nice bright sunny day. Up early as we had to be on the bus by 8:00 a.m. We drove up to Stellenbosch via Franchhoek to see the Huguenot Monument. The Huguenot Memorial and Museum commemorates the 250^th anniversary of the arrival of the Huguenots. Franschhoek was founded by French Protestants (Huguenots) fleeing from persecution in France. Since the climate here was very similar to the area from which they came, they settled down specializing in vineyards and wine-making. Had a quick stop at the Drakenstein Prison from which Nelson Mandela was released after his imprisonment. The Huguenot memorial was quite something to see with a large very old cemetery beside it and the museum dedicated to the Huguenots. We had time to walk into Franchhoek, a delightful small village where we visited a really old church where they were getting ready for a wedding later that day. They had prepared ‘confetti’ made out of rose petals – which is what they use rather than rice or normal confetti as it is more environmentally friendly – what a good idea! We then headed off to Stellenbosch where we visited the Dorp Museum (4 different houses that survived the many fires there and represented the homes of different eras and social class). Then we had lunch at a local restaurant – the Volkskombuis Restaurant which served three course lunches. The food was wonderful. After lunch we headed for the Seidelberg Wine Estates where we had a tour of the estate and wine tasting. Then we finally got to go to Table Mountain as we could not earlier because of the weather. We went up the tram which was pretty neat and the walk around was breathtaking. We were free for the evening and had dinner at a local restaurant called San Marco in the harbour with Joan, Kay, Jeannette and Gerald Blanchard. We had a very good dinner.