The last supper

so the last night in cape town has come:-( before leaving africa, we decided to have dinner at mama africa, a very good restaurant on the long street with live music. very good!

The Table Mountain

on our very last day the weather finally turned better and we could climb the table mountain... well I must admit that to climb is not the right verb. actually we went up with the cable way, but the result was the same, we reached the top! we would really have missed something if we hadn't the possibility to come up here. the view is really wonderful. but also the landscape is very beautiful, that's why they made a national reserve here.

Robben Island

hello. in this pic you can see robben island the place where nelson mandela and many more political prisoner were imprisoned for many years. i didn't take any pic on the island, because as you may understand in such places you don't feel like:-(

Kanonkop

Time to drive back to cape town. after one sleepless night thinking about what wine to bring back to europe, we decided for kanonkop's pinotage. so we drove to the estate where we met a very nice lady anita, very expert and passionate about wine. she managed to let us smell the banana in the pinotage! thanx anita for the wonderful experience, today we really had our best tasting in south africa! ciao a tutti!

Franschoek

Franschoek, the french corner, is the 3rd big wine region. we couldn't avoid to pass here too. we also passed the night in a cottage surrounded by the wineyards of the chamonix wine estate. very beautiful!

Wine Festival

2 freshly made sommeliers like us have been very lucky to arrive in this town just in the days of the wine festival! the festival is very well organised between theorical lessons and practical tastings. every wine producer of the surrounding exposes here his best products. in the end we've been tasting around 30 wines... the best one? difficult to choose. we agree on 3 wine estates: spier, longridge and kanonkop.

Stellenbosch

and here we are in the mecca of the wines in south africa! stellenbosch is probably the best known city for wines of the land, but it also hosts the oldest university. this is probably the reason why the atmosphere here is very different from the other towns. a lot of young people around and it seems more quite and relaxing then elsewhere. don't these pix convey to you a sense of peace (canons apart:-)?

Fairview

time to stop and start to taste some wine! we decide for the fairview wine estate where for 30 rand (almost 4 euro) we taste 8 good wines, starting from a chardonnay, through a couple of shiraz, not forgetting the south african pinotage and finishing with a porto ruby. but the best one for us was the spice route malabar 2002, a blend made from cabernet, merlot and mourvedre. many thanx to our sommelier enoch who served us all the best wines, showing a great knowledge and kindness. thanx again and see you in europe!

Paarl

this is the first city where we stop famous for its wines. its name comes from the granite mountains the dominate it and that shine like pearls. on the mountains there's also the language monument, dedicated to afrikaans language, as it was recognised as official language.

the wine region

and here we are! passed the "Du Toitskloof" pass we finally have the wine region at our feet! now we will finally taste the real south african wine! let's get down...

worcester

at night after almost 400 km we decided to stop in worcester. so we would have had the possibility to arrive in the wine region with the day light. we stayed at pieter & annette's b&b, a very nice couple who invited us at a local art exhibition (you can see a very nice and impressive example of wood sculpture). this morning we had a wonderful breakfast and talked long with the householders. we suggest whoever of you will pass here around to stop at "die stoepkamer".

route 62

after the cango ranch we took the famous route 62 heading west, direction sun! the road is fascinating and goes between two parallele mountain chains, crossing the wild land of klein karoo.

cango wildlife ranch

this morning (yesterday:-) we decided to see some wild animals and went to the "cango wildlife ranch" in oudtshoorn. unfortunately the flood destroyed the cats area and we couldn't see thelions:-( but here are some good examples of other african animals!

oudtshoorn

hello from oudtshoorn! due to the not perfect climate conditions (...) we decided to leave the coast and head to north. we heard that hier the weather should be better and we can confirm it:-) we crossed the Outenikwa Mountains (covered by the usual fog...) and reached oudtshoorn, the capital of the ostrich farms. here is possible to ride these awful animals, but we're not sure to be brave enough... for now we've eaten ostrich steaks and we weren't very excited. tomorrow we'll try an omelette. back to our day, this afternoon we visited the cango caves http://www.cangocaves.co.za where we spent a good time learning more about speleology and geology. after the visit we took place in a b&b and now we're hungry like lions and go to eat something!!! ciao a tutti (cris thanx for your comment:-)

The island of Neverland...

after the visit at the diaz museum, we left mossel bay and we took the famous garden route under a real storm... we had lunch in knysa, a city on a beautiful lagoon (which wasn't really visible...), and drove on to plettenberg bay, where we were supposed to spend an overnight in a hostel on the so called stanley island... please check the link http://www.stanleyisland.com/ . well, after looking for the island, we found out that the island has recently been evacuated because of the flood (the most violent since the 60s)... so we decided to take a room on a hill:-)

Museum day

is there anything better to do in a rainy day than visit a museum? well here in mossel bay there's of course the bartolomew diaz museum, where a replica of his caravel is conserved. this replica was made for the 500th anniversary and did the exactly same journey of bartolomew. you can also see a pic of your 2 heroes in the castle of the vessel and in the last image alessia torturing a milkwoodtree which used to be the "post office" for the desperates who passed around here. they just needed to leave a message in an old boot hanging from the tree.

Santos Express

buongiorno... so folks the grey and rainy weather goes on... what a pity, because we passed the night on this train parked right in front of the santos beach, where bartolomew diaz landed in 1488. please check the link. we had the chance to have breakfast with 2 whales bathing 30 meters off the shore.

the way to mossel bay

time to drive again to the east to mossel bay. this is a sample of the landscape we've been driving through for almost 300 km! see you tomorrow:-)

E CAMPIONI DEL MONDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Cape Agulhas

who of you did know that the cape of good hope wasn't the southermost point of the african continent??? well I didn't know it... the right place is the Cape Agulhas where the atlantic and the indian ocean meet. here 2 currents from the 2 oceans crash and cause terrible storms, fortunately there's the usual lighthouse!

PS
today at 10 am LORENZO came to the world: welcome!!!