Weltevreden Estates

Two days ago, we left Cape Town. I’d like to say we walked away victoriously – like this – looking confidently into the future of our South African vacation. Instead, we shirked from the city, glancing furtively over our backs, afraid our bad luck would follow us deeper into the continent (although, to our credit, we did it while successfully driving on the wrong side of the road, so there’s that!)

As we drove east, the city ceded into countryside, with bright green rolling hills (what drought?) and vineyards – humbly termed ‘wine farms’ by the locals – on every vista. Wind cooled the heat, sun toasted our skin, and mountain ranges rose elegantly into the sky.

Soon, we arrived in Stellenbosch, to our new home at Weltevreden Estate (pronounced velt-i-freed-en), the Cape Dutch equivalent of a Victorian manor home. This place has all the hallmarks of country charm – flowers in bloom, hundreds of feet of hedgerow, wood-burning fireplaces, honor bars, and small dogs sunning themselves on warm tile steps like it’s summer in Sardinia. It also has a couple of South African quirks – awkward statuary, a children’s carnival where adults chug beers and nod obligingly as their children run rampant, and a security-staff-to-guest ratio of about 5 to 1.

Here, we’re staying in a room that’s like an extremely elegant hobbit house, complete with sloping thatched rooftops, claw-foot bathtubs, and an armoire straight out of Beauty and the Beast. And as fragrant air drifts in through filmy curtains and the sky turns candy-colored, I can feel the stress of Cape Town melt away.

Now, let’s get drunk at some wine farms.