Cape Town has plenty of luxury

Cape Town has plenty of luxury hotels, restaurants, and shopping centers, its character is defined by districts and experiences that may not be postcard-perfect or wonderfully chic, but instead evoke the grit and pathos and spirit of the city.
Victoria & Alfred Waterfront is a great place to start a Cape Town tour. It is probably the number one tourist destination, but this bustling retail development is smack-dab in the center of a working harbor, and has been an epicenter of Cape Town since the 1600s. It is not only a great place to shop, dine, and take photos of the city; it’s also a departure point for all the ocean-traveling adventures, from banana boat adventures to pirate ship booze cruises to luxury catamaran sunset sails.

For a experience visit District Six, the former inner-city slum that saw major attention during the apartheid era when government officials removed 60,000 non-white residents. Today, the neighborhood is being rebuilt and completely re-imagined, while some of the people that had to move out 20 or 30 years ago are getting permission to move back in. To understand more of the full story of what happened here, visit the District Six Museum, which gives a fairly exhaustive history of apartheid and the district itself.

A favorite of adventure guide book the township of Bo-Kaap is as notable for its colorful history as for its colorful architecture. The population is a melting pot, made up of Indonesians, Sri Lankans, and various other ethnicities including, of course, Malay. This was the first place in Cape Town that they settled, giving it its old name of “Cape Malay Quarter.”
Sure you’ve swum with dolphins, but have you swum with penguins? This is possibly in your future at Boulders Beach, a popular swimming and bird-watching beach on the Cape Peninsula route from Cape Town. Though the human swimming part of the beach is separate from where the busy, braying population of African Penguins hangs out. A few penguins inevitably break ranks and go say hi to the humans