Day 6: Franschhoek

Our first full day in the winelands began with me wandering through the little town as S had some work to do on her laptop. All of the guest houses and buildings are so charming; the whole town is extremely pleasant to walk through. Many shops are tucked in behind the main street accessible through quaint alleys.

I reserved a picnic lunch at the Boschendal winery which was a 10-minute drive away. The seating area is under the shade of many tall trees, and we enjoyed our vegetarian basket immensely. The tasting was less impressive, as we didn't really enjoy any of the 10 wines we sampled.

Many of the wineries close around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, so we were only able to make it out to one other winery, Grande Provence, which doesn't close until 8. The estate was beautiful, very elegant and classy. We enjoyed two of the wines enough to purchase a few bottles which they packed for us in styrofoam-padded boxes.

Our new friends from last night told us about a dinner and jazz place nearby for dinner, so we walked from the guest house down a lane, guided by the sound of the music. A small band played outside while we had a nice cheese platter but almost inedible spanokopita. The best part were all the little kids dancing and flailing their arms to the music in the near darkness. I think admission was R100 which included a bottle of wine.

Complete set of South Africa pictures in my Flickr set.