Sea Point
Sea Point is located on the Cape Peninsula's western shoreline and shielded from the Cape Town city bowl by Signal Hill. It is a built-up suburb featuring numerous holiday apartment blocks. It features a rocky coastline with no sand beaches. The main coastal activity here is walking along the shoreline, paved, promenade. On a clear day you can see Robben Island in the distance. For swimming there is a shoreline salt-water pool on the boundary with neighbouring Bantry Bay. The latter is more upmarket than Sea Point.

The suburb offers some of the most economical accommodation in the Cape Town region. While it has a wide selection of good restaurants, coffee shops and takeaways it's also home to some rather seedy establishments such as escort agencies and sex shops.

Bantry Bay
Bantry Bay forms the bridge between economical Sea Point and posh Clifton. It's geographical position on the coast between these two suburbs, in the shadow of Lion's Head, is symbolic of its accommodation offering. The suburb features some good quality three and four star hotels in agreeable surroundings. It also features a rocky coastline and no sandy beaches as such. Bantry Bay's close proximity to Clifton provides good access to the latter by means of a narrow coastal drive, but at much more affordable accommodation costs.

Clifton

Clifton's coastline, it's four sandy coves aren't visible on this photograph.

The Cape Town suburb of Clifton is undoubtedly one of its most affluent. While the suburb's position on the steep slopes of Lion's Head does not allow for large expansive gardens its multi-storey homes and apartments, many with elevators from street level to their front doors, are home to the rich and famous.

Clifton offers stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean and is home to four beaches, numbered as Clifton Beach 1st to 4th, which are extremely popular with the young and thirty-something hip and "in" crowd. It is a place to see and be seen.

Camps Bay

Young construction workers on Camps Bay Beach near Cape Town...

Camps Bay, neighbouring Clifton to its south, is the name of one of the most popular beaches in Cape Town as well as the seaside village next to it. On a sunny day the beach is packed with sun worshippers, in summer many of them are tourists from abroad enjoying South Africa's warm climate while the northern hemisphere are experiencing the middle of their winter. The town and beach are both family friendly but still popular with the younger crowd as well. It also offers a variety of quality accommodation and dining options.

Oude Kraal, The Twelve Apostles & Victoria Drive

The view from Oude Kraal northwards with the Twelve Apostles Hotel in the foreground,
the Twelve Apostles Mountain Range on the right and Camps Bay with Lion's Head behind it in the distance.

Camps Bay and Llandudno with Hout Bay just beyond, some eight kilometres south along the Peninsula's coastline, are linked by Victoria Road, a scenic coastal drive. It hugs the rocky coastline of Oude Kraal, a fully conserved area but for the Twelve Apostles Hotel (highly recommended) and a picnic spot close by. Oude Kraal lies in the shadows of the impressive Twelve Apostles range of eighteen buttresses extending southwards from Table Mountain. The Twelve Apostles and Oude Kraal fall within the Table Mountain National Park.

Llandudno
Llandudno is a secluded and upmarket seaside village just north of Hout Bay on the Cape Peninsula's western shoreline. It is located below the coastal scenic drive of Victoria Road.

The village lies against a steep incline and offers great views over the Atlantic Ocean. It is best known for its small beach and as being the main access point to Cape Town's only nudist beach at Sandy Bay next-door. It offers limited accommodation but there are no restaurants.

Sandy Bay
Sandy Bay is Cape Town's only nudist beach. The beach is located in a no-development zone and is accessed from neighbouring Llandudno, a 20-minute walk away. Non-nudists also have access to the beach and surrounding area, which includes various trails ideal for hiking.

Hout Bay
Hout Bay is a particularly beautiful coastal inlet on the Cape Peninsula's western shoreline, a little over 20km south of Cape Town. It is home to the small town of Hout Bay, which mainly centres around the Hout Bay Harbour and tourism.

The town is also popular with Capetonians wishing to live away from the city bowl's more hectic pace. Hout Bay offers a lot to tourists including boat trips to "Seal" Island, World of Birds (bird aviaries and small animals), whale watching in season and the scenic Chapman's Peak Drive.

Chapman's Peak Drive
The coastal road linking Hout Bay and Noordhoek to the south is a very popular tourist attraction in South Africa. It is cut into the mountainside and rises high above the beautiful Hout Bay providing visitors with exceptional views. The viewing point at the highest point of the pass and the views it provide feature in countless photographs of tourists and professional photographers alike. It is also a perfect vantage point for whale-watching in season. The height of the vantage point helps one to see someway below the surface (on clear days) making it possible to see much more of a whale even if it's not surfacing.

Noordhoek
If you're doing a guided day-tour of the Peninsula you will probably not even notice Noordhoek, at the southern end of Chapman's Peak Drive, unless pointed out to you. What you will definitely notice is the village beach - Long Beach. As the name implies it stretches out quite a distance - ±6km in fact. The beach is Noordhoek's main attraction, together with the activities built around it. Some of the popular beach activities include hiking, surfing, kite flying and horse-riding.

The Red Herring Restaurant in town offers good seafood and great ocean and beach views. Noordhoek has a fair collection of guesthouses, B&B's and other accommodation. For more on Cape Town beaches, click here.

Kommetjie
Along Long Beach the town of Kommetjie is only a couple of kilometres from its northern neighbour Noordhoek. However by road you have to travel 15km to get there. It also provides access to Long Beach (see above). Kommetjie is Afrikaans for "bowl" or "basin". The name refers to the Kommetjie Beach's small basin, which provides for water temperatures a few degrees warmer than that of the surrounding waters. The beach also features a small picnic area. The town is very laid-back and not really orientated towards tourists although it does offer some accommodation options. Kommetjie is a popular retirement destination because of its slow pace and beautiful smallholdings.

Scarborough
The little village of Scarborough is about as far away from Cape Town proper you can get when heading south along the Cape Peninsula's western shoreline. This fact and its proximity to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve are its main attractions. It functions as a breakaway for many city residents over weekends.

The village feature's a rocky coastline strewn with granite boulders. Just south of Scarborough and its Schusters Lagoon there is a sandy beach but swimming there is dangerous. Although the village is quite beautiful it does not offer much to tourists.

Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve & Cape Point
The southern part of the Cape Peninsula is a conservation area, managed as the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. It has a variety of antelope, amongst others the biggest antelope in South Africa - the Eland. The Reserve also provides a safe haven for big troops of baboon.

At Cape Point you can either take the path or funicular to the lighthouse on the top of the ridge. From there one has a great view over False Bay and on a clear day you can see right across the Bay to Hangklip which marks the other end of the Bay approx. 30 km away. For more information on the Reserve click here.

(For an overview of the whole Cape Peninsula, click here. For information on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula, click here.)