SA Part II - Winelands

After we left Cape Town we drove to the winelands, which is really only about a 45 minute drive away.  We stayed in a town called Stellenbosch, which was my friend, Candice's, 'uni' town - what a fabulous place to go to school!

Wine has been produced in South Africa since the mid-1600s. When the Dutch explorers settled in what is now Cape Town, a doctor with the Dutch East India Company was given the task of planting vineyards to produce wine and grapes to ward off scurvy for the sailors traveling along the spice route.  Stellenbosch is the second oldest wine region in SA, the oldest being Constantia (where we had dinner our first night in Cape Town).  

Beautiful lavender fields:  

The Dutch influence in SA can be seen everywhere in the architecture of the buildings, road names, and language.  Roads have names like Riebeek Straat and Hans Strijdom - things I saw a lot of in Amsterdam!    The Cape Dutch architecture features prominent, ornate gables that are reminiscent of townhouses in Amsterdam:

The language spoken in SA (other than English) is called Afrikaans, it is a descendant of Dutch dialect from the 17th century.  

This is in the town of Franschoek (Dutch for "French Corner) - I am standing in front of the memorial dedicated to the French Huguenots who settled here in the 17th century:  

The little town of Franschoek has a great main street with lots of shops and cafes to wander into, we stopped at a place for a break and a glass of wine - the waitress must have liked Stephen, she poured him a gigantic glass:

Driving from Franschoek back into Stellenbosch:

I think traveling around to see the world's various wine regions would be a pretty great bucket list, they are all so beautiful and temperate, just heaven on earth:

Our hotel in Stellenbosch gave us Crocs to wear instead of house shoes, a nice gesture but I am still not a fan of these things:

Wine touring day - first stop, Kanonkop Estate:

So in every wine tasting I've ever done, I have drunk the wine completely and not spit it back out again.  But at this particular winery as soon as I took my first sip the woman helping us gave me a wine spit bucket.  Being that it was only about 10:00 in the morning and we had a long day of wine tasting ahead of us, I used it.  Stephen got a kick out of this and insisted on capturing the moment:

Barrel room at Kanonkop Estate:

This is as we were heading into Delheim, French grapes in SA:

Wine tasting in the Delheim cellar:

We bought some!  Only a case, we knew we weren't going to ship a ton back to the US:

We had lunch on the lawn at Warwick Estate:

Should you ever find yourself in the winelands of SA, go have a gourmet picnic at Warwick.  The staff sets out blankets and large lounging pillows, and brings you a picnic basket full of things like freshly baked artisan bread, cheeses, fruit chutney, sun dried tomato pesto, and chocolate brownies topped with white chocolate ganache and cranberries.  And, of course, wine:

And, after you are done eating, you get to lie there in the sun for as long as you want!  The ideal way to digest a meal.  

 Branches from a metal "tree" over the entry of a winery:

Driving into Thelema Winery:

The lounge at our hotel (Stephen, lounging):  

We had dinner one night at Spier winery, outside under a tent, with local South African musicians who sang to us:

Here's the thing about SA, the country has so many different regions, each one better than the last, that you don't think it can get any better!  I loved the winelands and was sad to leave, but glad we did.  Our next stop was Knysna, a town on the Plettenberg Bay in the Garden Route... Part III...