Wine tasting and high tea at the Lord Nelson, oh my

Yesterday, we went to Franschhoek to taste wine at Allee Bleue.   We tasted four wines, all of them good, even the white, but what we were waiting for was La’Amour Toujours, the wine the owner made and dedicated to his wife.  Oh. So. Good!  Friends will be happy that I ordered two cases of it (short cases, alas) and we’ll have a wine tasting party when I get home.  The tasting and buying took about 1 1/2 hours, and was accompanied by a great cheese platter. The guy was pouring almost full glasses (well, full glass in wine terms), so we were all pretty looped (except L, the designated driver), but we were determined to have lunch there as well — it was as excellent as we expected.  I had Kabeljou (a delicious, firm white fish — pronounced “cobble yo”), Cilla and Laird had a great curry and Marita had enough control to just order a hummus pita with veggies.  Smart!  We were stuffed, and still looped. as we drove up toward the Franschhoek pass because Cilla had never seen the view from there — it’s amazing and awesome and we got to see some baboons.   Coming home was a big chore, but we finally made it and all collapsed. (We have to figure out how to post pictures on this blog.)

Laird is the Cape Town driver and is doing a marvelous job.  For all of you who know him, I know you don’t doubt it — he’s been able to get us around mainly by remembering where and how we went in years past.  What a star!   Yesterday, we got stuck behind a terrible accident; today, trying to get out of Cape Town almost meant our lives.  CPT drivers are real buggers — they won’t give an inch, but insist on taking at every opportunity — they are crazy. Think of the bad word of your choosing.

Today, we went back to the waterfront — yea, shopping time!  Jonelle is trying, once again, to rescue the South African economy with her purchases. Then we took a taxi to the Lord Nelson hotel, now called the Mount Nelson for some unknown reason — other than maybe new owners who wanted to mess with a circa 200 year old iconic symbol of CPT — for high tea.  I have wanted to do this for years and years, even before I came to CPT the first time.  It was everything I imagined and more.  Beautiful old hotel, completely pink, with white balconies and adornments.  We were early, so we went out on the patio by the bar and had sherry, of course.  The high tea room, called the Windsor room, I believe, is like most of them, with living room sets — a sofa and two wing chairs for us, right near the dessert table.  The centerpiece of the dessert table was a huge old silver bowl holding TWO HUNDRED pink roses!  We could have had seats in the conservatory if we had so desired.  Luckily, we were the only ones inside, so we had a lovely time and didn’t have to try to hear what someone at another table was saying. The food was magnificent. We spoke with the young chef who bragged on the recipe book presumably collected over the last hundred years or so. The food was delivered to the table in four tranches. First, we selected among about thirty varieties of tea. Laird chose the Mount Nelson six-tea African teas blend … quite bold with berries on the palette — oh, no that was the previous day at the winery. Jonelle and Marita had the Chinese White tea, while Cilla chose the Oolong infused with Jasmine. Jonelle and Marita decided that Cilla was the winner in the choice parade. The tea came in a stainless steel basket that nicely fit into the clear crystal tea pot. Our waitress, Tully, swished the tea basket in the four separate tea pots. The second tranche was the three-tiered silver plate tray with the cucumber, salmon, cream cheese, egg and other savory finger sandwiches on the top two tiers and chicken pie (magnificent taste), fried cheese balls (our least favorite) and a bunch of other wonderful finger foods on the bottom tier. The third tranche was the scone course, complete with strawberry jam and clotted cream. Of course, among the lower caste of international foodies, clotted cream is known as whipped cream. We had clotted cream. Just as we were going into coma, we realized that we had to rise and partake of the sweets at the Windsor table. Marita had enough good sense to pass, but the rest of us recognized our duty and filled our plates with magnificent sweets: vanilla crumpets, carrot cake, black forest cake, lime and mint macaroons,, petit fours, mini milk tart and L’s fav — lemon meringue tarts. Having done our duty, we were still able (mostly) to rise from the couch and depart the venue.

Having arisen successfully, the ladies went to the Ladies Cloakroom, which has an entry room, the sink room, with, of course, real hand towels to use, and several “facility rooms”.  In one of the jewelry cases going there, we saw these wonderful ceramic animal angels — rhino, elephant, zebra, etc, with wings, hanging from the ceiling of the case on clear fishing line — yes, I DID want them!

The place is HUGE, with several buildings and cottages — we went into one of the cottages, called Rose Cottage, consisting of two suites, each with living room, marble bathroom, a half bath and a gorgeous bedroom with a high king size bed, private patio off the bedroom.  The front of the cottages have a porch and some kind of climbing, flowering vines across the front.  I have to save up and stay there sometime before my traveling life is over!  The gardens are lush, with animal sculptures scattered around.  I want to stay for about a week until I’ve seen everything there!  And, it’s not that far from a Turkish bath, which I love.  We found that Laird’s brilliant idea of parking once and taking a taxi is the way to go, so we have booked one for tomorrow on our next adventure.  Our driver’s name is Haille Salassie and, why yes, he is Ethiopian.  When you’re not driving, or riding even, Cape Town is so very beautiful and interesting.  All the palm trees, the banana trees, gum trees, flowers.  I recommend it highly — and I know a great place you can stay, as well!

It’s going to be 17 degrees C tomorrow, so perhaps our sunny, capri-wearing days are over.  Even though we don’t have raincoats or umbrellas, I do hope it rains and rains and rains in CPT — they need it so badly!  There are signs everywhere about the drought and the water restrictions are down to cooking, drinking and essential washing (we’re not sure what that entails, or limits).  Where we are staying at the beach, the place has its own borehole, but sucking water out of the ground has its own problems.  I can’t believe they are just now starting to design a combo desalination and wastewater purification facility — they are way behind on their vitally needed water solutions!  There should be desalination plants all along the coast.  Dana Bay gets its potable water from such a plant — I assume so does Mossel Bay, the larger municipality that Dana Bay is part of.

Atlantically yours, jm, with miscellaneous marginal comments from L.