Wine Tram, Franschhoek

Another reason why so many visitors fall in love with South Africa is their grapes.

Well maybe not just with their grapes, but what they do with their grapes...

South African wine production dates back to the 17th century to the Cape Town region, which just so happens to be the place we find ourselves on this glorious Sunday.

Everyone I spoke to about SA said you simply must visit the wine regions when in Cape Town. 

But how to choose the right one when there are so many?

After some research and speaking to locals we choose the Franschoek region, mostly due to the fact they offered the "Wine Tram Tour" of the vineyards and in this heat, I could not think of a better way to get round.

Basically a (very) posh wine bar crawl in the glorious sunshine.  

You had the tram to choose from which offered a hop-on and hop-off service. 

We, however, opted for the Purple Line which showcased some of the best wines, according to the locals, and rode the tram-bus instead with a very lovely guided tour of the region. 

Franschhoek itself is a beautifully outlined by sweeping mountains and fields after fields of vineyards and flowers. 

And with the bright blue sky it almost didn't look real. 

The tram-bus offered you the opportunity to get off at 4, 5 or 6 stops depending on how long you wanted to spend at each. But even doing the 6 stops you had plenty of time to taste the wine, grab a bite to eat and enjoy the glorious heat. 

We started our wine tram bus tour at Boschendal where a standard tasting will set you back R40, that's a whopping £2 to taste 4 wines! And 40 Rand was on the more expensive side of the tasting tour...

You might recognise the name Boschendal as it is one of the oldest wines in the regions and you can find it in your local Tesco. No wonder they stock it as it has some of the best tasting reds, whites and roses. 

Simply delicious!

The next stop was Vrede & Lust where a 5 wine tasting cost us R25, that's £1.30 but that wasn't even the cheapeast!

Our last two stops at Allee Bleue and Solms Delta only cost us R20 each, that's £1 to taste a collection between 4-5 wines!

We also made pit stops at Noble Hill (with complimentary olive oil tasting but I still prefer Spanish), Babylonstoren and Plaisir.

I'd like to say I captured images at every vineyard but there were 4 of us girls, there was gossip to be discussed and there was wine flowing so here is a collection of the ones I did manage to take!


At least there is proof in 2 photos that I did taste the wine!

I can not deny that we didn't arrive back to our new airbnb a little bit squiffy...

We may have set our apartment alarm off as soon as we got in and didn't make nice with too many of the neighbours...

But oh well! South Africa you are an absolute beauty of a country and for anyone that is thinking about where to go on their next holiday I can't recommend SA enough.

SA was always on my list of "I will get there eventually" but I never imagined I would be sent on a work trip here and all I can say is I fell in love straight away!