From Kloof Street to Kalk Bay: a luxury hotel tour in Cape Town

My South African cousin describes Cape Town as a city where the mountain is always on your back. And it’s true – Table Mountain lies like a sleeping giant as your plane lands, and then looms above you as you travel around the sprawling city. I found its presence comforting, one constant in a new place. On a sunny day the steep slopes cut a stark line against azure skies; on grey days it’s masked in a tablecloth of cloud; on my final day, at sunset, wisps of cloud spun off it in trails of candy floss pink.

I was visiting South Africa with my 85-year-old grandmother. She grew up in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape before moving to England when she got married at 23; I also spent the first few years of my life in Johannesburg. But neither of us knew Cape Town that well – especially not some of its most famous hotels.

It’s hard to write a piece about Cape Town without acknowledging the reality for those who live in the city: during our nights spent in Airbnbs we witnessed load shedding (the energy crisis most South Africans have been living with for