Day 1 in South Africa

I am so glad I discovered that Windsor was so close to Heathrow. In the taxi I was at Heathrow in less time than it would have taken to walk to the train station. After I got to the airport, I took the tube to Covent Gardens. I went there because, first, I’d never been there. And second, the Picadilly line that goes to Covent Garden dead ends into Heathrow terminal 5, which is where I needed to be for my flight. I left my roller duffle and backpack in left luggage and headed out for the one-hour ride into central London.

I decided on a mini spa day with a mani/pedi and a massage. They were all wonderful! After that I headed to the shopping/restaurant area for lunch.

After wandering the markets, I headed to the Royal Opera House for a “behind the scenes” tour. No photos were allowed in the theater but here are a few of the public areas.

After the tour I was exhausted from all the walking/standing in the 90-minute tour, so I headed back to Heathrow.

Here’s a string quintet playing in one of the markets. I saw them on the way to the restaurant and they were still playing hours later when I went back to the tube after the tour.

My flight from London went off without a hitch. It was 11 1/2 hours but, with the help of Ambien, I slept for 6 of them! The lay flat seat was a little more comfortable on AA than on the BA flight, but I was so tired I don’t think it really mattered.

We landed in Cape Town on time, and it was more emotional than I expected. As soon as we touched down, I remembered how badly Peter wanted to take this trip and I got a bit teary. I’ll be thinking of him a lot over the next 10 days, but I know he’d be glad I am here.

When I arrived, there was a representative from the travel company met me plane side, and he got me through immigrations very quickly. He handed me over to the driver who brought me to the pretty Victoria and Alfred Hotel at the waterfront. Alfred was Queen Victoria’s second son and he helped develop the waterfront.

As it was only about noon, the room wasn’t ready, so I checked my luggage with the bellman and headed out to the hop on/hop off bus.

My first stop was Table Mountain. It was a beautiful day with low winds, so it was good time to take the cable car to the top.

My next stop on the bus was Camp’s Bay.

Lunch was sliders. The location was convenient as the restaurant was across the street from the bus stop.

Then it was back to the hotel to check in, get to the room, change clothes (clouds had rolled in and it was getting chilly so out of capris and into jeans) then back out again to catch the 4:45pm sunset bus tour that came with my 2-day hop on hop off bus ticket. Unfortunately, it got foggy so by the time we got to the top of Signal Peak, here’s what we saw.

When the driver stopped, she told us to be back in 30 minutes. Seriously??? What exactly were we supposed to look at for 30 minutes? It took about a minute to grab this pic then it was back on the bus as it had gotten cold. I did get a little bit of sunset on the way up, though.

Once back at the hotel, I stopped into the restaurant for a light dinner.

Seriously, I’ve been traveling internationally for 40 years. Why do I keep forgetting that if I order seafood anywhere other than the U.S., it comes complete with heads, eyes, tails, etc.? They were at least 3 inches long and there were only 2 tiny bites of edible seafood on them. Luckily, the rice was filling so I’ll be okay until breakfast. Note to self: avoid seafood!

It’s now after 9pm and I’m getting tired, so I’ll close for now. Thanks for traveling with me and I’ll report in tomorrow.