Republic of SOUTH AFRICA-1st Day:-March,22nd,2019

Republic of SOUTH AFRICA     

1st Day & Night :-from Istanbul to Cape Town

21.03.2019 & 22.03.2019                                                                         

We took the flight of Qatar Airways from Istanbul to Cape Town via Doha. Our plane took off at 19:40 from Ataturk Airport. I am together with Mehlika and we landed at Doha Airport around 24:00. Doha Airport, named Hamad Int’l Airport, is a new and modern building and very luxuries. Our connection flight was on 01:45. It took around 10 hours to Cape Town. There is no time difference between Istanbul and Doha whereas the time difference between South Africa is 1 hour. Even it is a long distance flight there is no jet lack problem on this trip.

It was next day approx. 11:00 o’clock when we arrived at Cape Town. There is no visa requirement for Turkish Citizens. We took the tour bus “Mega Coach” from the Cape Town Airport and it took us to the down town. We approached to the city from Southeast using the route M3. The Table Mountain was the most peculiar visual effect when we came closer to the down town.

Table Mountain and Trasnportation to the top

We got out as the bus came to the “BO KAAP”. This part of the city is populated originally by the Islamic people who had been deported from Fareast countries like Indonesia, Malesia. There are a few colorful houses on the main street of Bo Kaap. These had been used to be houses of Islamic people in the old times.

We continued with our bus through the city Cape Town. We saw the Parliament House and the Castle of Good Hope. Then we stopped in the Grand Parade Square where there is the Town Hall. This place and this building is outrageous.

After Mandela had been released from the prison on 11^th, February, 1990, several hours later, Nelson Mandela made his first speech on the balcony of Cape Town's City Hall.

There is now 1:1 size statue of Mandela on the balcony.

Town Hall of Cape Town

Balcony of the Town Hall with the statue of Mandela

Our bus took us to the Company’s Garden, which is nowadays a green park in the middle of the town. In the old times, late in 17^th century the Dutch-Indian Company came here and established a real big garden to produce agricultural products like vegetable, fruit etc.

The garden is today rather smaller but there are big trees and green habitation where the people may enjoy the nature in close surrounding.

We had been driven through the main streets in the town and then we arrived at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. We left the bus here and walked into the Waterfront Mall. We went to the Greek Restaurant on the second floor having a view over the harbor. The weather was fine and sunny. 

After the lunch we continued on the bus to our Hotel Lady Hamilton. We moved to our room and we took a rest until 19:00 o’clock. After that we called a UBER taxi and we went to the Waterfront. That place is full of people. The restaurants and bars are looking nice in the night. We took a ride on the wheel. There is a nice view over the harbor. As we finished our ride on the wheel we took place in the restaurant just adjacent to us. It is a kind of “Biergarten” (beer garden) and there is a small orchestra playing and singing. We took Savanah dry (a kind of beer with ginger soda with 3% alc.) and Weizenbeer. I ordered also a classic hamburger. We spent more or less 2-3 hours in the Waterfront and then took a UBER taxi and drove back to our Hotel Lady Hamilton. UBER is safe for the in-city transportation.