South Africa, Day One: The Winelands

Welcome to Camps Bay, the posh and beautiful beachside suburb of Cape Town.

Cape Town is a lot like the South of France and Camps Bay is a lot like St Tropez, with beautiful roads winding along a coast of beaches and mountains. More on that later. We have a Winelands Tour to get to!

Yesss. Our week in Cape Town was meticulously and perfectly organized by Caroline. We had an adventure planned each day (with some adventures beginning as early as 8am...) and every single meal at every top restaurant in and around the city was pre-booked months in advance. It was kiiiiind of incredible.

First stop! The Stellenbosch Winelands.

Caroline had booked us private tastings and tours of the top vineyards in the region. First was Rust En Vrede...

Followed by the GORGEOUS Delaire Graff Estate. Owned by the renowned diamond dealer Laurence Graff...

Their monstrous tasting room was unlike any tasting room I've ever seen. Impeccably decorated with gorgeous artwork, sculptures, and set against the most surreal backdrop of flowering fields and vineyards and mountains...

Also, all the servers were gorgeous supermodels.

We toured the winery...

Sampled and smelled casks...

Gahhhhh. It was sooo pretty.

Then we stopped for a lunch break at top South African restaurant La Petit Ferme.

Ostrich Carpaccio...

Charcuterie...

(Complete with wine-spills.)

The waitress rubbed Bobby down with salt like he was a piece of meat. It was hilarious.

And the lamb dish that I had (braised lamb surrounded by eggplants and mashed potatoes) was hands down THE MOST DELICIOUS LAMB I'VE EVER HAD.

HEAVEN.

And all of this was eaten and enjoyed on a shady hill overlooking mountains and vineyards as far as the eye can see...

It was a great group that Charlie & Caroline had brought together. And everyone fell in love rather quickly. 

After lunch we went to Haute Cabriere, owned by the parents of a friend of Caroline's. Their tasting room and cellar was IN A CAVE!

We got a private tour and wine lesson/tasting from the lovely owner herself!

And then her gorgeous son/heir gave us a lesson in sabrage, the art of slicing open a champagne bottle with a saber.

If ever you visit South Africa, you MUST visit the winelands.

From the winelands we went straight back to CapeTown for sundowners (sunset drinks).

Caroline had gotten us a rezzie at the beautiful Grand Beach and SupperClub.

LOVES having the beach to ourselves!

This Kiwi Mojito was the MOST AMAZING COCKTAIL. Among our group we must have downed about thirty of them.

And the sunset was a little cloudy...but ended up being glorious.

And then we had GIANT pizzas and salads.

And so began a week of pure decadence.

South Africa Preview

South Africa so far has been frickin' mind-blowing.

Caroline has had everything pre-planned: from our tours to our meals to our cocktail spots. It has been so effortless and amazing.

Hopefully I'll be able to update in full at some point. But I've taken so many pictures. (almost 1,000 keepers so far...) and I'm just really not sure if I will be able to post and recap EVERYTHING. So I'm going to try to at least post an abridged "preview" in the off-chance that I'm never able to post every little detail.

We've been to the winelands...

They were, of course, spectacular...

We've had an amazing meal at some top restaurant for every single meal. It's been decadent, and yet, incredibly affordable. (Our most expensive meal so far was only $65 a person.)

It's such a fun and lovely group!

We've seen seals...

Baboons...

Ostriches...

Penguins...

We went to the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost point of Africa.)

Did I mention we are having EPIC meals???

And today we went to Table Mountain...

Ahhhhhh!!! CapeTown is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen!

And I still have 4 days to go!

18 hours in Amsterdam!

I landed in Amsterdam around noon on Saturday.

Got to downtown around 1pm, which left me some time to explore. (I've been here a few times, but the last time was like...wow...I'm just realizing...10 years ago.)

Amsterdam Centraal is probably the easiest major city to get into from its airport. It's just a 15 minute train ride which puts you at the train station which is in the center of everything.

Seeing as I'll be back here in April with Teebags, I didn't wander around too much. Everything still looks as I remember it. I just really needed fooooooood.

Decisions, decisions...

The choice was easy.

Oh god they were so good.

After my snack and a little more exploring. I went back to my hotel, the Barbizon Palace, and crashed.

Woke up at 5am (it was pretty easy...jetlag) and booked it to the airport for my 12 hour flight to South Africa.

Since Delta's partner, KLM, is headquartered here in Amstrydam, the lounge here is pretty awesome. They have a full buffet breakfast with pancakes and donuts and those yummy little deli meats and fresh rolls that European people love to eat for breakfeast.

YUM!

See you in Cape Town!

Off to Amsterdam & Cape Town!

I'm off to Cape Town to celebrate Caroline & Charlie's Honeymoon!

As you may or may not remember, Caroline & Charlie got married back in December.



Caroline is originally from South Africa. So for their honeymoon, Caro and Charlie wanted to bring 20-30 of their closest friends to experience the wonder of her hometown (before they take off on their own private honeymoon safari). And since we all became pretty close over the course of the wedding adventure, I got invited to come along too. Yayyyy.

So for the next week we're going to go on tours, wine tastings, hikes, concerts, swims, and just lay by the beach/pool (it's SUMMER!).

Everything is already planned. All we had to do was buy a plane ticket. And my plane ticket happened to come with a 24 hour layover in Amsterdam. Super Win!

I feel so lucky and am sooooo excited!!!

LOTS of pics to come soon!