Arriving at Cape Town Airport, we picked up a Hertz car and drove to Franschhoek without any difficulty. The lack of difficulties was apparent by the fact that we got to the hotel, Akademie Street Boutique Hotel, well before 9am. Here we me the manager, Declan from Newry, who armed us with some coffee and suggestions for the day, the main thing being the "Wine Tram" round the surrounding vineyards. So off we hurried on a short walk to the tram ticket office, and caught a tram about 11am.
Franschhoek
Franschhoek ("French Corner") is a small town in the Western Cape Province and one of the oldest towns of the Republic of South Africa.
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The valley was originally settled in 1688 by 176 French Huguenot refugees, many of whom were given land by the Dutch government in a valley called Olifantshoek ("Elephants' corner"), so named because of the elephants that crossed into the valley to calve. The name of the area soon changed to le Coin Français ("the French Corner"), and later to Franschhoek (Dutch for "French Corner"), with many of the settlers naming their new farms after the areas in France from whence they came: La Motte, Champagne, La Cotte, Cabrière, La Provence, Bourgogne, La Terra de Luc and La Dauphine were among some of the first established farms — most of which still retain their original Cape Dutch farm houses today. These farms have grown into renowned wineries.
Many of the surnames in the area are of French origin, e.g. Du Toit, Marais, Du Plessis, Malan, Malherbe, and Joubert. This heritage is shown today by the Huguenot Monument which stands at the end of the town. The museum nearby chronicles the history of the first settlers. The Cape Dutch architecture in much of the village is unspoiled, as restrictions have been placed on the extent of renovations and new construction in order to preserve the spirit of the original settlers to the area.
I was actually interested in the Huguenot history in South Africa, as I have Huguenot ancestors in Ireland and have researched them in Ireland. However nobody in the museum knew anything of the Huguenots other than their story in South Africa.
The museum is a building that has been taken brick by brick from another city in South Africa and reassembled here The setting and the adjacent memorial is wonderful.
The museum, and its annex over the main road (one ticket gets you in to both) falls down on the presentation of the exhibits . Much is in French only, which is fine if you speak French. And the exhibits themselves are not well or interestingly presented. It needs a good curator to jazz the place up a bit, and really get the story of the Huguenots across to anyone visiting.
The Huguenot memorial in the park beside the museum (you pay extra) is spectacular and worth the extra to go right up to it.
The railway line was operational in 1904. A 27 km railway line was built between Paarl and Franschhoek to serve as an alternative to ox drawn carts for farmers wanting to get their produce to market. Steam locomotives operated along the route until diesel locomotives took over in the 1970s and then, in the 1990s, as the need for rail transport decreased, service along the railway line was discontinued. Part of the railway line was reinstated in 2012 by a private operator and now sees service as the Franschhoek Wine Tram, a tourism project utilizing a newly constructed tram modeled after the open-sided Brill Trams of circa 1890 to transport tourists between wine estates in the area.
Once a sleepy country retreat, the village began experiencing a boom in the 1990s, and property prices have increased sharply. The ideal summer weather, snowy peaks in winter and proximity to Cape Town have turned Franschhoek into one of South Africa's most sought after residential addresses. The construction of the new English-medium private Bridge House School outside the village has also attracted many urban dwellers to the village. Franschhoek is notable for having some of the top restaurants in the country within its borders. This fact, together with the strong wine culture, and pristine natural and architectural beauty has made Franschhoek into what many describe as the "food and wine capital" of South Africa.
Akademie Street Boutique Hotel
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You might wonder why there are nearly a thousand reviews on TripAdvisor extolling the virtues of Akademie Street, and making it one of the highest rated hotels in the world (number 9 in Small Hotels in the World on TripAdvisor). The obvious answer is that it is very, very, good, and in spite of being, by South African standards, expensive, it does offer very good value for money.
I suppose for me it was the genuine warmth of welcome that came top of list of plus points. Declan, Hazel and Daisy were all warm and welcoming. Dinner was recommended and booked for us in Reuben's and Declan pointed us at the Wine Tram, which we enjoyed
Everything in Akademie Street Hotel is included in the price. They will do your laundry, no matter how unreasonable the amount - that is included. As are all the wines and spirits and beers in your fridge. There is a selection of snacks. And the delicious breakfast that others have raved about. The hotel is a well furnished home.
In short you sit back and indulge yourself. We only booked two nights, we should have booked four or five and made Franschhoek the hub of our stay in the Cape. They can organize a trip into Cape Town, or to Stellenbosch, as well as lots to see and do locally
It is a very comfortable hotel, but not over luxurious, it being the warmth of the welcome and the personal and genuine service that make it so special. The original owner sold the hotel at the end of last year, but the new owners are more than carrying on the tradition of extraordinarily high service and friendliness.
The Wine Tram
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Our trip on the Wine Tram was certainly a great day out visiting the vineyards.
We took the Blue Route with stops for tasting at La Couronne, Holden Manz, La Bri, Rickety Bridge, and Grande Provence.
We had a light lunch at Holden Manz which we enjoyed, though many of the vineyards look good stops for lunch as well, but we could only manage one lunch!
The deal is you buy a ticket, then choose either the blue or the red route, which you can see on their map. You can stop in theory at as many of the vineyards as you like to enjoy a tasting. But given that the tram only comes round every hour, you are limited to about 5 stops in the day
In theory most tastings are free, but you are "encouraged" to buy better wines or tapas/chocolates to taste to augment their revenues. The quality of the free tasting wines is, to be truthful, not that great. But the paid for wines are in a much better class. The extra costs are not that great.
So you get on and off the bus, then take the train up and down the short track. It is obviously a slick tourist operation, doing the trips day in, day out. But we did not feel "processed" at all.
If we had been staying longer at Franschhoek, we would have taken the other wine train route on another day.
Restaurants
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Haute Cabriere Restaurant
Good Food, Good Wine, Good Service, what more could you ask for?
We opted for the three course tasting menu and it was excellent.
Actually we chose each of the two starters, the two main courses & the two desserts. So enjoyed six wines between us.
The flavours were real. The wines were very good, and the service both professional and friendly
We ate outside , you do need to book to get an outside table, which our hotel had done for us. So we were able to enjoy the views over the valley and the mountains beyond. The only drawback is that the main road runs quite close to the restaurant, so there is a slight intrusion from the traffic. In addition, tasting only customers sit in front of the restaurant, so the view is again slightly diminished because of this
My gripes are very minor. It was a really nice lunch, which for a European was very good value for money, and I can unreservedly recommend this restaurant to anyone
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Reuben's Restaurant
Reuben's in South Africa is a legend in his own lunchtime and I suppose Reuben's Restaurant fell just short of the perfection I had been expecting.
The Chicken Liver Brioche starter I ordered was over spiced to the extent that the taste of the livers disappeared with overwhelming spiciness. And my yellow fin tuna was raw not just in the centre, but nearly all the way through.
The portion sizes are large, so we could not manage a pudding.
The service was OK , but nothing noteworthy either way. I guess there was a certain amount of feeling we were being processed, just another two punters passing through Reuben's processing mill. The ambiance is not that great
I thought that the bill was very reasonable, from a European point of view. So a perfectly nice evening out, but not memorable.