Any visit to Cape Town is of course incomplete if you don’t make the effort of visiting the stunning Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, the nearly 110 years old jewel in SANBI’s crown. Part of the Cape Town Big 6 tourism collective, Kirstenbosch was established in 1913 on land bequeathed to the Cape Colony by Cecil John Rhodes, and situated on the lush green eastern slopes of Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain, the sizeable estate spans an area of 528 hectares, 36 of those set aside for its large cultivated botanic garden that places an emphasis on cultivating indigenous plants from the vast Cape Floral Kingdom.

This large botanic garden has been turned into an incredibly welcoming space for visitors and is crisscrossed with a multitude of walking paths and picnic areas, and also features a number of facilities including its two restaurants, music stage, glass conservatory, and small shopping plaza. The immense selection of established trees and planned gardens are peppered with works of art and even a dinosaur sculpture or two, and of course its famed Boomslang footbridge allows you to walk high above the treetop canopy to get a look at what goes on below.

An incredibly beautiful and extremely well maintained and managed space to visit, explore or gather with friends in, and as such, very much a gleaming feather in the Mother City’s cap.

(And yes, as you can see from the pictures above, even cuddly fluffy stuffed friends like dragons and rabbits can tag along too.)

Related Link: Kirstenbosch | SANBI | Cape Town