After the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon: The Winelands
The Route: Cape Town → Franschhoek (1 night) → Stellenbosch → Cape Town Airport Logistics: Car hire or a private shuttle. N2 east, then the R45 into the Franschhoek valley. Franschhoek to Stellenbosch is a further 30 minutes on the R45; Stellenbosch to the airport is around 35 minutes. Marathon Month: May Duration: 1 night
Cape Town ──(≈60 min, N2/R45)──> Franschhoek ──(≈30 min, R45)──> Stellenbosch
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Cape Town Airport ◄──(≈35 min)──┘
The marathon finishes at Green Point Common on a Sunday in late May, and the winelands are an hour east. May is after the harvest: the presses have stopped, the vine leaves are turning gold and red across the valley floor, and the cold fronts have started leaving snow on the upper ridges. Daytime temperatures sit around 13 to 17°C. The Cape's winter rain does not properly arrive until June, so expect some grey and some light rain without expecting a washout.
Check the day before you plan around it. The Franschhoek Wine Tram is closed on Mondays outside the peak season, which is exactly the day most runners would go. Confirm the current schedule at winetram.co.za before you book anything else.
Franschhoek and the Wine Tram
Franschhoek is a valley village of around 15,000 people with mountains on three sides, settled from 1688 by Huguenots leaving France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The main street is the R45 as it passes through, and it runs flat and straight for about 1.5 km past Cape Dutch gables now occupied by estate offices and restaurants.
The Wine Tram is the reason this works the day after a marathon. It is an open-air tram on the old valley rail line, running hop-on hop-off between the estates. You sit down, get off at an estate, taste on a lawn or a veranda, get back on. The only gradient involved is the step up into the car. Three or four estates fill a half day comfortably. Rickety Bridge has a flat lawn in front of a Cape Dutch manor house; Grande Provence has a courtyard and a gallery; Môreson sits next to Bread & Wine, whose autumn menu runs to slow-cooked game and root vegetables.
By May the tastings have moved off the summer rosés and Sauvignon Blancs onto Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and the Cape red blends built from Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage and Merlot. Some estates will pour the new vintage straight from barrel.
Stellenbosch
Thirty minutes west on the R45, Stellenbosch was founded in 1679 and has the most complete historic town centre in South Africa. It is flat, organised around the Braak, and the essential walk is Dorp Street: roughly 800 metres of Cape Dutch, Georgian and Victorian frontages under enormous oaks. In May those oaks are in full autumn colour and dropping leaves across the pavement, which is an oddly northern-European thing to find in the Western Cape.
The University Botanical Garden on Neethling Street is free and has flat paths through Western Cape fynbos. The estates outside town need a car: Spier on the R310 is ten minutes out and level throughout, and Kanonkop and Rust en Vrede on the Simonsberg slopes release their current Pinotage and Cabernet vintages around this point in the year.
Where to Stay and Eat
Where to stay: Franschhoek's main street has small hotels and guesthouses within walking distance of the tram terminus, which is the point of staying there. Stellenbosch has more choice at lower prices and a student town's worth of places to eat.
Where to eat: Franschhoek carries more high-end restaurants per head than anywhere else in the country and books out well ahead, so reserve before you leave Cape Town. In Stellenbosch the streets around the Braak do the job without a reservation.
Getting Home
Stellenbosch is around 35 minutes from Cape Town International on the N2, which makes it the sensible last stop before a flight. If you are driving a hire car, factor in that you will have been tasting: use a driver or a shuttle service for the estate legs and keep the car for the transfers.