Cape Town a Favorite, Always Offers Exciting New Experiences

Days 80-81, 2025 Grand World Voyage

Tuesday and Wednesday, March 25-26, 2025; Cape Town, South Africa.

I walked around the building twice. According to my online research, the South African Maritime Museum should have been here, right in the middle of the busy Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town. Maritime museums usually are great places to learn about the history of a port city, and I’ve spent hours on repeated visits to such museums in places like Hong Kong, Auckland, Halifax, Kobe and Sydney.

It simply wasn’t there. The blue building, in a sea of retail shops, now houses retail shops. Later research indicates that the museum currently is at the South African Navy’s base in Simon Town on the east side of the Cape peninsula. I guess it will have to wait for another time.

There is a lot to see and do around this typically overnight port, and despite the fact that this is only my third visit here, I’ve been to many of the popular spots. In 2023, I visited wineries in the Franschhoek Valley and stood at the Cape of Good Hope. Last year brought more wineries, the beautiful Kirstenbosch National Botanic Gardens and tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel.

The iconic Table Mountain stands tall over the city, with its flat top frequently enshrouded in fog, known locally as the table cloth. Such was the case yesterday, but this morning Table Mountain caught the rising sun.

Even as we were about to leave tonight, the city lights dramatically reflected on its sandstone and granite face.

Cape Town is easy to explore on your own, so after failing to find the Maritime Museum, I spent an hour exploring the Watershed, a cavernous converted warehouse devoted to South African artists. My leisurely pace allowed time to chat with artists, including the woman who made a much-complimented bead necklace I bought last year. Many paintings caught my eye, but alas, I have nowhere to hang them.

Still, there’s always a place for new jewelry. Today I bought unusual earrings, made from fynbos, a type of shrub-like vegetation that grows in South Africa’s Cape region. The term actually encompasses multiple plants, including the King Protea, South Africa’s national flower. This jewelry is made from compressed fynbos stems, leaves and flowers. Using fynbos to make art is this year’s theme at the Watershed, and I saw many examples as I walked the aisles.

Next door, Time Out Market features a dozen different culinary offerings in one giant food court. I opted for bao at How Bao Now, where “authentic Cape flavours combine with Asian street food.”

Cape Town is a lovely, modern city, but they say it’s easy to take a wrong turn and end up in an unsafe neighborhood. As I was on my own today, I decided to join a group walking tour of Bo Kaap, Cape Town’s oldest surviving neighborhood. It was settled by Muslims from Indonesia and southeast Asia, called Cape Malays, and today is known for its brightly colored facades.

Bo Kaap is still largely Muslim, with several mosques visible from almost any corner of the community spreading across the steep hillside. But gentrification is encroaching, as others are drawn to the central location. We found restaurants and art galleries among the small homes with front stoops along cobblestone side streets.

After the tour I joined the hop-on, hop-off bus traveling along the southern coast with its beautiful beaches and expensive homes. I met friends back at the waterfront for drinks while watching all the packed tour boats leave for their sunset cruises.

We returned to the ship in time to enjoy a concert by Cape Town’s Tygerberg Children’s Choir.

Described as one of South Africa’s proudest export products, the group performs in South Africa for heads of state, princes, kings and queens and has been crowned world champion more than once at the annual World Choir Games. This type of special concert is a highlight of world cruises.

Yesterday was even more relaxed. With a shopping list in hand, I wandered the large modern mall looking for over-the-counter medicines for friends. Despite visiting three different recommended shops, I couldn´t find origami paper. One of our waiters has been making origami animals with old menu paper, and we thought we would treat him with the real thing. I´ll leave it on my list.

Among the shops, bars and restaurants of the V&A Waterfront, buskers sang, danced and impossibly contorted themselves every few feet.

But just a few steps away, in the back of the canals, rusting boats that look beyond repair sit in dry docks. I’ve seen them from a distance on previous visits and been drawn to sketch them, but couldn’t get a good view, as the work zones are behind barricades.

This time I rectified that by boldly going into the lobby of the Radisson RED hotel and asking for access to their roof to take some photographs. (It´s one of those times I don´t mind saying I am a travel writer.) To my surprise, they took the request in stride and found a security guard to take me up. Now I will have source photographs for future paintings. It’s a good thing we have a number of sea days ahead as we sail north, now in the Atlantic Ocean.