Cape Winelands
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl. An hour out and a different landscape, with towns worth walking as much as the farms.
Guides to this part of the city
Wine estates
Babylonstoren
A 1692 Cape Dutch working farm transformed into a world-class destination. Explore the famous eight-acre edible garden, taste estate wines, and dine…
Vergelegen Wine Estate
On the Helderberg slopes in Somerset West, Vergelegen (est. 1700) spans over 3,000 hectares. It pairs award-winning Bordeaux-style wines with celebrated gardens,…
Lanzerac Wine Estate
At the foot of the Jonkershoek Mountains, historic Lanzerac (est. 1692) is the birthplace of the world’s first bottled Pinotage. Today it…
La Motte
A historic Franschhoek estate dating to 1695, La Motte blends French Huguenot heritage with award-winning wines, contemporary South African cuisine, an artisan…
Delaire Graff
Perched on the Helshoogte Pass between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, Delaire Graff blends acclaimed wines with fine dining, African art and a luxury…
Tokara Wine Estate
A premier Stellenbosch estate on the Helshoogte Pass, Tokara pairs internationally acclaimed wines with award-winning olive oil, fine dining and contemporary art,…
Boschendal
In the Franschhoek Valley, Boschendal (est. 1685) blends historic Cape Dutch architecture with award-winning wines, seasonal picnics, farm-to-table dining and luxury stays.…
Spier Wine Farm
Just outside Stellenbosch, Spier combines three centuries of Cape Dutch heritage with award-winning wines, chocolate pairings, art and picnics. Its regenerative farming…
Walking
La Motte Hiking Trail
La Motte’s hiking trail is a five-kilometre circular route on the estate, of which about two kilometres is trail proper. Allow two…
Jonkershoek Panorama Circuit
The Panorama Circuit is the big day in Jonkershoek. It climbs from the Eerste River to Bergriviernek, contours high across the Dwarsberg…
Dirtopia Hiking Loop, Muratie
The Dirtopia Trail Centre sits in the Ansela building on Muratie, off Knorhoek Road on the Simonsberg side of the R44. Its…
Swartboskloof to Sosyskloof
Sosyskloof is the easy loop in Jonkershoek, and it begins on exactly the same climb as the 18 kilometre Swartboskloof Trail. Where…
Tweede Waterval (Second Waterfall)
Tweede Waterval is the gentlest of the four official trails in Jonkershoek Nature Reserve. The path leaves the hairpin bend on the…
Perdekop Trail
The Perdekop Trail is the big day at Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve above Franschhoek: a thirteen-kilometre circuit to the reserve’s high point…
Golf
De Zalze Golf Club
De Zalze is a Peter Matkovich design laid out across three farms on the edge of Stellenbosch, with fairways running between vineyards,…
Hazendal Golf
Hazendal Golf is the shortest full round in this collection and the only one where every hole is a par 3. Eighteen…
Stellenbosch Golf Club
Stellenbosch Golf Club is, by its own account, the fourth oldest club in South Africa: a parkland layout at the foot of…
Erinvale Golf Club
Erinvale is a Gary Player design that opened in 1995 at the foot of the Helderberg in Somerset West, about thirty minutes…
Paarl Golf Club
Paarl Golf Club has twenty-seven holes on Boschenmeer Golf and Country Estate in the Paarl and Franschhoek valley, framed by mountains, rivers…
Pearl Valley Golf Course
Pearl Valley is a Nicklaus Design course in the Paarl and Franschhoek valley off the N1 north of Cape Town, ringed by…
Things to do
Wellington Wine Walk
The Wellington Wine Walk is a guided walking experience rather than a marked public trail. Accredited guides lead small groups between historic…
Franschhoek Wine Tram
The Wine Tram is how most visitors move between Franschhoek wine estates without driving. You choose one of five colour lines and…
Hot Air Ballooning
A sunrise flight over the Cape Winelands, lifting off from farmland as the light comes up. Flights go only when the air…
Cape Winelands Wine Tour
A driver lets you enjoy the tastings without worrying about the road home. Send us your dates, your group size and any…
Mountain biking
Bottelary Yellow Loop from Brenaissance
A mapped version of Bottelary Hills’ official Yellow Loop starting from Brenaissance, one of the Conservancy’s recognised access points. The route heads…
The Ibex
One of MTO Jonkershoek’s three featured routes, The Ibex combines a substantial valley climb with contour riding and a sequence of flowing…
Helderberg Farm Black Section
Helderberg Farm’s most demanding marked MTB route, combining a compact 12 km loop with substantial climbing and Black-grade riding. Green, Blue and…
Bovenland Red
Bovenland Red is a 12 km circular route in the Paarl Trails network, starting and finishing at Spice Route Destination. Paarl Trails…
The ABC Trail
A primary-confirmed Green route at Muratie built from three sections: A is 3.7 km to Gilloolys, C returns 2.7 km, and the…
More about this area
Everything else in Cape Winelands
VOC Kruithuis
The Kruithuis is the oldest building on the Braak and the easiest to walk straight past, which is a pity, because there is nothing else like it left in the country. It was finished in 1777 to hold powder and shot for a town that was never attacked, and that anticlimax is most of its […]
Stellenbosch University Museum
Two minutes up Ryneveld Street from the Village Museum, and almost nobody walks the extra block. The university’s museum holds more than six thousand pieces of traditional African art — masks, sculpture and textiles from across the continent — which makes it one of the largest collections of its kind in the country, and it […]
Jonkershoek Nature Reserve
Jonkershoek is where the Winelands stop being about farms. Nine kilometres out of town the valley narrows into steep fynbos-covered mountains, four rivers come off them, and the pools and waterfalls along those rivers are what most people are actually walking towards. Four marked trails run from a manageable 5.3 kilometres to an 18-kilometre day, […]
Jan Marais Nature Reserve
Jan Marais is the reserve you can walk to. It sits inside Stellenbosch, a few minutes from the centre, and it is the easiest place in town to give children an hour outdoors without getting into a car. There is a jungle gym and swings, a flat 1.7km perimeter path that works for small bicycles, […]
Dorp Street
Dorp Street is where Stellenbosch is easiest to read. The buildings went up over roughly two centuries and were never cleared away, so a single block can carry a Cape Dutch gable, a Georgian front and a Victorian veranda in sequence. Oaks shade the length of it. Oom Samie se Winkel has traded here since […]
Stellenbosch Village Museum
Most house museums show you one moment. The Village Museum shows you four, in four adjoining houses, and the interest is in what changes between them. Schreuderhuis, the earliest, is a small early-eighteenth-century dwelling with a beaten floor. By the last of the four the rooms have grown, the furniture has become formal and the […]
Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden
The Botanical Garden is the quietest thing in central Stellenbosch and one of the easiest to fit into a day. It is compact enough to walk in under an hour, and it is arranged to teach rather than simply to look pretty: sections set out South African biomes, medicinal plants and the university’s research collections, […]
Rupert Museum
The Rupert Museum is the most serious art on offer in Stellenbosch and it costs nothing to walk into, which is an unusual combination anywhere. The collection is private in origin, built by Anton and Huberte Rupert from the 1940s, and it reads as one household’s taste rather than a survey: Irma Stern, Maggie Laubser […]
Franschhoek
Franschhoek is a single valley closed on three sides by mountains, and its history is written into the name. Between 1685 and 1699 around 300 Huguenot refugees settled at the Cape, many of them here, bringing the vines and the French place names that still run down the valley floor. The Huguenot Monument stands at […]
Stellenbosch
Discover Stellenbosch South Africa’s second-oldest town sits twenty minutes past the city, where the Cape Winelands begin. The old centre is compact enough to cross on foot and its architecture reads as one continuous record: Cape Dutch gables giving way to Georgian and then Victorian frontages, under mature oaks. Dorp Street is the spine of […]