Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa's legislative capital and oldest city, is set in one of the most beautiful urban landscapes on earth — a city wrapped around the foot of Table Mountain, between the mountain chain of the Cape Peninsula and the cold blue Atlantic. Known as the 'Mother City', it combines dramatic natural scenery with rich history, fine food and wine, and a relaxed coastal lifestyle. Its defining landmark is Table Mountain, the flat-topped massif whose summit — reached by a revolving cable car or on foot — gives sweeping views over the city, the sea and the peninsula, and which, with the surrounding national park, forms part of the Cape Floral Kingdom, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of extraordinary plant diversity (the fynbos). Below it, the city spreads from the regenerated V&A Waterfront, with its harbour, shops, museums (including the Zeitz MOCAA contemporary art museum) and the boats to Robben Island, through the historic City Bowl and the brightly painted, Cape Malay quarter of the Bo-Kaap, to the Atlantic Seaboard beaches and beach suburbs of Camps Bay, Clifton and Sea Point. South of the city, the Cape Peninsula unfurls in one of the world's great scenic drives — past Hout Bay and the cliff-hugging Chapman's Peak Drive to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point nature reserve at the peninsula's tip, and to the colony of African penguins at Boulders Beach near Simon's Town. Inland and around the slopes of the mountain lie the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, the wine estates of Constantia, and — within an hour's drive — the Cape Winelands towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek among their vineyards and mountains. Add a celebrated food scene, markets, history and a strong creative culture, and Cape Town is consistently rated among the world's best cities to visit. The climate is Mediterranean — warm, dry summers (December–March, peak season, sometimes windy with the 'Cape Doctor' south-easter) and cool, wetter winters; the shoulder months of spring and autumn are especially pleasant.