Cape Town from the Air

Cape Town Stadium sits in Green Point between the sea and the mountain, built for the 2010 World Cup and known as DHL Stadium under its sponsor. Behind it Signal Hill runs up to Lion’s Head, where the noon gun has fired every day but Sunday since 1806. Table Mountain closes the southern horizon — 500 million years old, flat as a table top, with the cloud that spills over it called the tablecloth.

Round the back the route drops down the southern suburbs to Newlands, the oldest Test ground in South Africa, opened in 1888 and used until 2021, and on past the Constantia vineyards, planted in 1685. Out to sea lies Robben Island, a prison for four centuries and where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in captivity.