Franshhoek

After breakfast in the little dining room across the courtyard from our room, we set off to visit Boschendal Manor House Museum. This is a country house dating from 1812, known as an historic Cape Vernacular Manor House. It gives us an insight into how the Huguenots lived here two centuries ago, being painstakingly restored and furnished with contemporary furnishings. There are also extensive gardens, a gift shop and wine store.

We moved on to the prestigious De Graff Delaire estate, where we tasted some wonderful wine, and were also introduced to the extremely useful wine skin as we did buy a couple of bottles of wine to take home! We also saw some more sculpture by Dylan Lewis, whom we had seen on display at Kirstenbosch. Here we were alerted to a flat tyre by the parking attendant. He not only told us of our fate, but also summoned one of their mechanics, who 'helped' A fix it. What an amazing service given freely to visitors to the estate.

 Once again we drove on to another wine estate, this time Haute Cabriere, in the mountains behind Franshhoek. The owner is known for his demonstrations of sabrage - the lopping off of the tops of champagne bottles with a sword at one stroke. Needless to say, he wasn't there when we visited, but once again we tasted some fabulous wines and some to bring home.

 On the way down we stopped at the Huguenot monument and cemetery at the end of Franshhoek town. There were huge preparations underway as from tomorrow there will be a champagne festival in the town. (And we are leaving - is that what you call bad timing!)












Our restaurant tonight was Le Bon Vivant, described by the folk at Auberge Clermont as 'qwirky'. We sat with a wonderful view of chef/owner, Pierre Hendricks, cooking dinner. His food is fabulous, so artisticly arranged and full of flavour. We really enjoyed ourselves, and it was a great dinner to end our South African trip with.

Wine Country

We checked out after a relatively early breakfast and headed to the wine region in the direction of Franschhoek.Our route took us along the R45 and first stop was Babylonstoren.

 This is an old Cape Dutch farm with vineyards, dating back to the 1690s. Their latest venture is the farm hotel and the amazing restaurant Babel, that uses fruit and vegetables from the beautiful kitchen garden. We came to visit the garden, and spent some time wandering the pathways between the beds of seasonal produce, negotiating tortoises on the way. At the far end of the garden are the greenhouses that also double as the café. Here we were served latte in elegant cups with the coffee on the side - such fun - and delicious cakes.

It was hard to move on, but we needed to get to our next stop, La Motte, one of the vineyards owned by the Rupert family. We arrived and began by looking at the exhibition of South African artist Jacob Hendrik Pierneef's paintings  (1886 – 1957). Some of his art has been used as wine label's for the vineyards wine. Although we hadn't booked for lunch, the restaurant were happy to accommodate us on the sofas by the fireplace (no fire needed today!), for coffee and a sandwich. In the main part of the dining room there were chandeliers made from dinner services! Quite a unique touch.

On up the road, and we arrived in Franshhoek. We found a space for the car, and took a stroll around this touristic little town before driving around the corner a couple of miles or so to our lovely hotel, Auberge Clermont. We have a beautiful room to stay in for the next couple of days, and our host is happy to recommend and book dinner in the town for us, so we are well organised. Tonight we have been to French Connection, eating inside as that wind is still blowing! We had a jolly meal with good wine and we were glad of the early reservation as the restaurant really filled up as we were eating.