Franshhoek wine tram

Time to leave Camps Bay and move on to Franshhoek, but we will be returning to CB when we fly to Durban in a week or so’s time.

Franshhoek is a small town in the wine region of the Cape. Franshhoek means French Corner but it looks more Dutch than French. It is ridiculously picturesque and so tidy. The gardens around where we are staying are stunning: nothing is out of place.

Our little “cottage” is gorgeous too. Accommodation is not particularly cheap here but what you do get is of high quality.

Like Camps Bay, it’s safe to wander around but our host said just be aware of your surroundings. Naturally we ended up accidentally walking home from dinner along a very dark road which was silly, but we arrived home safely. Me loads, Fear 1.

Today was Wine Tram day. Charlie recommend -ed this to us and backed it up with video evidence of Amy having a great time. 😂

We booked in advance and chose the orange route because Charlie couldn’t recall which one he and Amy did and a blog said it was good.

The tram routes are numerous and it would take someone with a doctorate in maths to work out which route to take, which vineyard to go to and how long to stay there. As S is ruled by his stomach, it was a relatively simple decision as we chose our first stop on the basis of how near it was and what food it offered. This was the Anura vineyard and turned out to be a great choice. Most people had got off the tram much earlier so it was only us and one other couple doing the wine tasting. This winery also made its own cheese so as well as delicious wine, we also had a divine cheese and charcuterie platter to share between us. Heaven. I could have stayed there all day, the winery was so tranquil.

They also had their own microbrewery and we toyed with the idea of doing beer tastings as well, but with the old adage of “wine then beer, you’ll feel queer”, we decided to forgo that and go on to the next vineyard.

The next winery we chose to visit was Boschendal. This is the oldest winery, dating back to 1685 when the Huguenots first arrived. More polished than Anura, I went for the wine and chocolate pairing while Steve had the classic 5 wines tasting. Both were great, but the chocolate pairings were very well done and the star of the day for me. We had a quick wander around the rose garden before getting on the wine bus which would take us to the tram.

Call us complete lightweights, but we both felt as though we’d had enough wine by then and chose to skip our final winery visit of Solms-Delta. However, if you wish to, and you start early enough, you could probably fit in visits to 4 or 5 wineries as long as you kept an eye on the time and paced yourself!

We decided to eat in tonight and chose some seafood from Checkers supermarket which is the equivalent of Booths in Keswick for those of you in the know. Interestingly, the price of buying the ingredients and cooking your own meal versus eating out are very similar.

Tomorrow we plan to do some walking in the nearby nature reserve. My legs are still aching from Table Mountain but hopefully they have enjoyed some recuperation from today’s lazy and indulgent day.