Where the heart lies ... by invitation

I've been an infrequent participant in the monthly international blog party that I was kindly invited to join last year. Work and other stuff tends to get in the way of blogging, zut alors.  But this month's theme was not only a breeze but a pleasure to contribute to: "Your home town ... whether it be where you live now and consider home or where you grew up". 

For some of us, defining 'home town' is tricky. Cape Town is neither where I was born/grew up, nor where I live now. But I tend to agree with Karin at La Pouyette (whose post on the Périgord which she now considers home you should see here) that 'in the end I'm at home wherever my heart is'. And a large tract of my heart is here, for reasons which, since it's late in the day, I will express with few words and probably far too many images ...

Cape Town is where two oceans meet (the Atlantic and the Indian), at the tip of Africa ...

on either side of a series of breathtaking mountain ranges ...

and lush valleys with vineyards ...

Boschendal (top) and Groot Constantia (bottom) wine estates


It's a place where eating out becomes a feast for all the senses ...

Babylonstoren farm & Babel restaurant, above

on a vineyard terrace 

Uitsig wine estate (top), Delaire estate & restaurant (4 bottom pics)


in a forest under the mountain

Gardener's Cottage restaurant, Montebello, Newlands


or a cobbled patio in the old quarter of town 

All above pics in & around Cape Quarter, Waterkant, and La Petite Tarte coffee shop


A place of enterprise, creative spirit and hope

Greenmarket Square, Cape Town city centre, weekend market (above & below)


a landscape of colour

 landscape of contrasts 

Imizamo Yethu township, Hout Bay 

wild nature and nature's art of wild imaginings

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens with Zimbabwean Mambo stone sculptures (top collage); wood-carvings by Right Mukare at Montebello Design Studios, Newlands (bottom collage)

gardens that flower and flourish year-round

Montebello, Newlands


vibrant sounds and celebrations

Cape Town's V&A Waterfront (above collages)

All photos taken May 2011 on my last trip to Cape Town. Happy to say that I will be there next month to enjoy all these places and more.

And as a footnote, I've been fascinated to discover, from scanning the other contributors to this international post, that not only has the town I currently live in been featured here, but also Cape Town by another blogger here (who has similar difficulties restraining her enthusiasm for this amazing city!)