Our Travels

My decision to travel 170 miles up North from Cheshire to Newcastle was a last minute one, having applied for a place on the Selling Travel / JA Resorts event at the Malmaison Hotel in the Quayside area, my confirmation came through the day before. The event hotel was fully booked, so I stayed at the Ramada Encore hotel, it was clean, basic and fairly comfortable for an overnight. The important factor was location & overnight parking, it was only…

We wanted to stay in the V&A Waterfront area of Cape Town for our first 2 nights in South Africa and chose the Victoria & Alfred Hotel for our accommodation. This hotel has 94 bedrooms and is right on the waterfront, situated next to the food market, a shopping mall on the doorstep and within a stroll of 80 restaurants, a perfect location for us. We booked a loft room and was allocated no 305, which would have had a…

Before we arrived in South Africa, I was convinced that we would use the Wine Tram to go wine tasting, their hop on, hop off service sounded like it could be fun. When it came down to booking it, I couldn’t decide which of the four tours to do, not knowing any of the wineries made it difficult, so we left the decision until we arrived at our hotel in Franschhoek. Osmond, the concierge at our hotel confirmed that the…

We loved the look of Franschhoek on arrival, so decided to head into town from our hotel on our first evening. I wasn’t sure where to eat, we were still waiting to try South African cuisine, then I came across recommendations for Ryan’s Kitchen. Ryan’s Kitchen is easy to find, situated in the Place Vendôme Lifestyle Centre facing on to the main road through town. We decided to drive in as we had booked a wine tour for the following…

The Bay Hotel enjoys an unrivalled position directly on a beachfront promenade. This stylish hotel is at home in the affluent suburb of Camps Bay, 9,5km away from the V&A Waterfront and Cape Town city centre. The hotel’s 78 rooms have a selection of sea view, pool view and mountain view rooms, which every way you look it’s impressive. The Twelve Apostles rise majestically behind the hotel for mountain views, pool view rooms on the side of the hotel also…

For our first dinner in Cape Town we both wanted to eat early and fancied seafood. After getting wet exploring the V&A Waterfront in the rain, we took shelter inside the Belgian speciality restaurant, Den Anker, which was conveniently on the quayside only a stone’s throw from our hotel. We didn’t have a reservation and the restaurant had a busy evening ahead of them, thankfully they took pity on us and offered us a table next to the fireplace. Having…

The African penguins that can be found on Boulders Beach near Simon’s Town, are a popular attraction for visitors to South Africa. The Boulders Penguin Colony was founded when a pair of African penguins were spotted on Boulders Beach in 1983, today there are around 1000 breeding pairs in residence at this sanctuary. These penguins were commonly referred to as “jackass penguins” due to the braying noise they make. The African Penguin has been registered as an endangered species since…