Table Mountain and Cape Town City Tour, Private Full Day

Table Mountain & the City

A mountain older than the Alps, a devil's legend, and a city with stories on every corner.

Long before ships arrived, the Khoikhoi called it Hoerikwaggo, the mountain in the sea, and some Capetonians still call it Old Father Grey. At around 260 million years old, Table Mountain is older than the Alps, the Himalayas and even the Atlantic Ocean. Its flat top runs for about three kilometres at 1,086 metres above the city, and its slopes hold more plant species than the whole of the British Isles. In 2011 it was named one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

Then there is the tablecloth, the white cloud that pours over the edge when the southeaster blows. Legend says a retired pirate named Jan van Hunks sat smoking his pipe on the neighbouring peak when a stranger challenged him to a smoking contest. The stranger was the Devil himself, the contest lasted for days, and the smoke still drifts over the mountain whenever they meet. That is why the peak is called Devil's Peak. Locals call the southeaster the Cape Doctor, for the way it sweeps the city clean.

On the other side stands Lion's Head, whose shape looks like a crouching lion, with Signal Hill as its rump. From Signal Hill, the Noon Gun has been fired every day except Sundays and public holidays since 1806, once so ships in the bay could set their clocks.

We ride the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, first opened in 1929, in cars whose floors turn a full circle on the way up, so every guest gets every view. On top, the paths lead to lookouts over Robben Island, Camps Bay and both oceans.

Back in the city, we walk the Company's Garden, planted in 1652 to grow vegetables for passing ships, and the five pointed Castle of Good Hope, the oldest surviving colonial building in South Africa. In the cobbled lanes of the Bo Kaap, the colourful homes of the Cape Malay community hide a remarkable fact: some of the very first books in Afrikaans were written here, in Arabic script. Nearby, the District Six Museum remembers a whole neighbourhood erased by apartheid.

The day ends at the V&A Waterfront, where Prince Alfred tipped the first load of stone for the breakwater in 1860, and where fishing boats still dock beside superyachts.

• Table Mountain cableway and summit walks
• The legend of the tablecloth and Devil's Peak
• Lion's Head, Signal Hill and the Noon Gun
• Company's Garden and the Castle of Good Hope
• The Bo Kaap and the District Six Museum
• The V&A Waterfront