South Africa

The morning started out simple enough. Our group of planners/journalists drove to the suburbs of Cape Town for breakfast at the elegant Relais & Chateaux property, Ellerman House. Built by an English shipping magnate in the early 1900s, the Cape Edwardian mansion overlooks Bantry Bay from a high hilltop perch. On the top floor, there’s a corner dining room seating 25 for exquisite morning repasts amid the graceful architecture and 250 pieces of museum artwork. Dinner is grand too with a wine list topping 7,500 South African labels.

You walk out of there floating just a little, with the fresh squeezed mimosas and rarefied setting having their predictable effect. So it was a jolt to see 10 motorcycles with sidecars and a gang of leather-clad bikers waiting under the port cochere.

Our South African Tourism handlers had promised the trip of a lifetime as a run-up to last winter’s SITE International Conference. Between the new luxury hotels built for the 2010 World Cup, the resulting oversupply of rooms offering excellent values, and an exotic collection of group activities, you can easily create the same experience.

With one person riding shotgun in “the bucket” and another sitting behind the driver, we rumbled away on the bikes provided by Cape Sidecar Adventures for the transfer back into town. This time we took the long route along the bustling beachfront and new Cape Town Stadium. Garnering more than a little interest from waving locals, this was a total blast while seeing the city in an entirely different light, especially for the first-time bikers.

Everyone assumed we were heading back to the hotel until we stopped at Cape Town Helicopter Tours. Four to a chopper, we flew high over the coastline along the summit of iconic Table Mountain and around the Cape of Good Hope. In colonial times, the Good Hope peninsula was regarded as the end of the earth by sailors fearing the notoriously dangerous waters where the Atlantic meets the Indian Sea. Today, the craggy shores are one of the top attractions in the country for visiting groups.

CAPE WINELANDS
Another surprise. Rather than returning to the helicopter base as anticipated, we swooped down into an ungodly beautiful valley laced with vineyards to the front lawn of Delaire Graff Estate in the Stellenbosch wine region. Before the end of Apartheid, Cape Town existed in a wine wilderness even though grapes have been cultivated here for 350 years. In the last decade, South African wine country—aka, the Cape Winelands—has expanded to over 600 wineries, making it the 8th largest producer in the world. Wine Tourism is exploding due to the worldwide foodie/locavore trend, and the wineries are capitalizing on it with magnificent restaurants and globally hip upscale inns for small retreats.

Owned by Graff Diamonds, the Delaire winery sits on a crest within the Helshoogte Pass bookended by gently sloping mountains, offering ga-ga views from Delaire Graff Restaurant. Available for private rental for 80 indoors/100 on the terrace, the space is a contemporary masterpiece designed by London interior guru David Collins, who decorated with Graff’s private modern art collection celebrating indigenous African culture.

The menu soars with items like pickled beetroot carpaccio with goat’s cheese fritters, and crayfish lasagne with king oyster ‘shrooms. There’s also the 18-seat Vinotheque private dining room inside the cellar, and there’s a collection of gorgeous new, sustainably-minded lodges with private pools facing the valley.

The way this day was unfolding, we should have expected a fleet of vintage cars like those used in Driving Miss Daisy waiting outside for us. I hooked up with Steve Woodward who restored the 1948 Hudson Commodore that he drives with a group called Old Timers Classic Car Hire. It’s a network of cool old dudes who chauffeur groups up to 200 pax around the Cape.

Steve drove a few of us through the rolling Winelands to Drakenstein Valley and the new Babylonstoren—one of the best preserved farm estates in the Cape Dutch tradition, anchored by a manor house built in 1777. Open since December, everything revolves around the massive garden where attendees can pick herbs/fruits/veggies for DIY meals at Babel, housed inside a bright and airy converted cow shed. They make an apple crumbler that will compel you to extend your booking.

For centuries, merchant sailors plying the routes between Europe and Asia stopped in Cape Town to replenish vegetables and fruit, so Babylonstoren pays homage to that tradition. For pre/post bookings, suggest to attendees with farm-to-fork inclinations one of the 14 guestrooms, some with funky stainless steel and rustic wood kitchens. Love the stark white, “barnyard-chic” rooms with farmhouse motifs that open out to the garden.

For the right type of group who want this sense of purity and simplicity, Babylonstoren is a perfect hub for exploring the historic towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, located 45 minutes from Cape Town.