Cape Town - South Africa, March 30, 2014

Free day, yah right... I told Jan this was to be our day off to just do whatever. Her response was that she wanted to go to Robbin Island, so we booked the 3pm, 5 hour tour, so much for lazing by the pool. I know 3pm, well she wanted to go to the Cape Town Museum first. So off we went. We walked the hour to the Museum along the Sunday quite streets of Cape Town, past churches, markets and parks, really very nice here.

The Museum was okay, sorry, I know for us and the Museums we have been very fortunate to see this once kind of fell flat, after about an hour on wandering around we took in a 45 minute show at the Planetarium. This show was great as it showed us what we could expect to see in the night sky around these parts, should be great for star viewing on the ship. Taxi back to the hotel by 2:15 then off to Robbin Island.

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned here in 1964 for 27 years. Robbin Island is 12 kilometers from Cape Town, there are Ferries that run here all day, every about 2 hours. You must make a reservation as this is a major attraction here for tourists and locals alike. I tried to get on-line tickets the night before, all sold out. So in the morning we went to the ticket stand and made a reservation for the 3:00pm ferry. This is a great tour and again feel very lucky in being able to go as this tour is not only popular but gets cancelled very often as the sea conditions can be very rough. I would say our crossing was rough and that any worse I could see it being cancelled, and this on a beautiful sunny day.

Once you get to the Island your shuttled into buses to go on a 45 minute driving tour of the island with a great guide. After this we are taken to the actual site where Nelson Mandela was held, there are a pictures of his cell included here. The best part of this part of the tour is the prison guide, different than the bus guide, he was an actual inmate of this prison during the imprisonment of Mr. Mandela (all the guides used within the actual prison are all former inmates). He was excellent and after guiding us for about a half an hour put us (about 40 of us) into a holding area and told us stories for about 20 minutes, he was only supposed to go for about 10 minutes because of the ferry but he got a bit lost in his stories and told us that the ferry will wait - this was an amazing visit.

Back to Cape Town for an excellent dinner at the V&A Waterfront and place with great live music, Shane FM was the name of the three piece band, a place called Quay Four. I had the mussels and these were incredible and yes I did get the recipe - the waiter thought I was crazy, but she asked the chef and he gave it up, awesome.

So much for our relaxing day, we are on the road tomorrow for our full day Cape Point and Peninsula drive. Hope you enjoy the pictures of our day.