Cape Town is a fantastic place to visit, with amazing scenery that can dazzle every guest, no matter what age, and has a rich urban life that is always on the move, and always shifting.  It’s had a remarkable and complicated history, and there are many tours here that can show you all the places where some of the greatest events of the 20th century happened.  It also has a rich array of cultures, with many languages and many traditions.  It’s possible to be in the midst of all this energy and also enjoy a heavy dose of relaxation and luxury.  The best Cape Town hotels offer an extraordinary sense of place, with elegant style and contemporary design, and shower the guests with a warm hospitality.

We’ve selected some of Cape Town’s finest, so that you can be assured that you’ll have a gorgeous place to retire, and rejuvenate for every part of your own Cape Town adventures.  There are lots of choices for exciting things to do, and it’s also possible to just spend a day watching the people, and getting to know the multiple and constantly shifting rhythms of the place.  The visual art is stunning, and there’s works of all mediums in the many galleries that dot the streets.  One of Cape Town’s more cutting edge of the institutionalized galleries, The AVA, or Association for Visual Arts, is definitely worth the trip.

It’s been in operation since 1971, and is one of the city’s oldest non-profit galleries.  Their exhibitions are always worth checking out, because they revolve once a month, and their focus is on contemporary South African art.  It’s a fabulous way to get to know the country, as well as getting multiple perspectives on Cape Town.  The AVA tends to attract more artists from here, since the exhibitions are artist-driven, and then culled through a curatorial process.  They present all sorts of different kinds of work, from painting to video installation to sculpture.  They also work with artists who are self-taught as well as formally trained, so there are multiple levels of experience and approaches going on here.  It’s a refreshing way of seeing and being in the art world in Cape Town.