Dassiesfontein on the N2 – if you visit one farmstall...

Dassiesfontein

Dassiesfontein is a smor­gas­bord of THINGS. We're talk­ing room after room of this and that – from antique fur­niture through kit­chen plates, cloth­ing and shoes, to Victorian fire­places. The venue is a ver­it­able collector's dream of kitsch and paraphenalia, so set aside at least an hour for your stop at this farmstall.

We piled out of the car, now des­per­ate for a breather, to stretch legs and maybe pick up a quick munch while we were at it. Immediately I sense that this farm­stall is not like any of the oth­ers we have vis­ited on the N2 (and there are numer­ous between Cape Town and Caledon). Continued

The SA-Venues.com Blog is a SA Blog Awards Finalist!

SA-Venues Blog in Top 10

If you appre­ci­ate our blog, we would really appre­ci­ate your Vote! To vote for us to win the Best SA Blog Award in the TRAVEL cat­egory ... PLEASE Click here to VOTE for us! Please! (Once you click on that link you will need to scroll down and enter your e-mail address so that they can con­firm your vote). And if you REALLY like us, you can even vote for us more than once! (You can vote once every 24 hours)!

We are incred­ibly proud and excited that the SA-Venues.com Blog has made it into the final­ists of the Top 10 Travel Blogs in South Africa. Having looked at the other 9 Top 10 Finalists, we are humbled to have made it into the top 10 as all the blogs in this cat­egory are all of a very high stand­ard ... Continued

Jou ma se goema

Mac McKenzie

A friend of mine shared a video about goema recently on Facebook. Since I don't have a clue what goema is, my interest was more than a little piqued. Mostly because this par­tic­u­lar friend of mine has intro­duced me to the sounds of Cape Town jazz in her own way.

Her house, up until recently, was a one-stop-shop for Cape Town musi­cians who used her lounge for jam­ming ses­sions, and any occa­sion that war­ran­ted it (and a fair num­ber of those that didn't) would find her home full to bust­ing — sing­ers with micro­phones, any num­ber of gui­tars, the piano and even the odd double bass — I tried not to be there on birth­days, New Year, pub­lic hol­i­days... you can see how this might have interfered with our friend­ship some­what. Continued

Keep Flying Campaign In Guinness World Attempt

Keep Flying!!

The Keep Flying ini­ti­at­ive – together with ini­ti­ator Draftfcb South Africa, Vodacom, the International Marketing Council of South Africa, Lead SA & SuperSport – will attempt to set a new world record at the Springbok-All Blacks Trinations clash on Saturday August 21 at FNB Stadium in Soweto.

The record attempt – 90 000 South African flags in one venue at one time — has been lodged with Guinness World Records, the ulti­mate author­ity on record-breaking achieve­ment ... Continued

Publish your own Book in South Africa — Find out just how easy it is!

Attend a Free Worshop and find out just how easy it is to Publish your own Book in South Africa! In one content-packed morn­ing, you will be guided through the pro­cess of pub­lish­ing by the Industry Leaders — for free! Those in the know agree that writ­ing & pub­lish­ing a book is one of the best ways to estab­lish your­self as an expert, an Authority on your chosen subject. However, the vast major­ity of people simply don't start the simple pro­cess because "they don't know how". Well, now you have the oppor­tun­ity to find out just how easy can be to pub­lish your own book in South Africa! Continued

Gala performance of the Cape Town International Ballet Competition

Andile Ndlovu *

On Saturday even­ing I went to the Artscape theatre with my mom and a good friend, we were there to watch the gala per­form­ance of the Cape Town International Ballet Competition. After stop­ping for a quick bite to eat and glass of wine at the News Café onsite res­taur­ant, which was very tasty but quite pricey we settled into our seats in the back row of the theatre. Just a quick note if you’re plan­ning on eat­ing at the res­taur­ant before a show it is advis­able to book before­hand and not do as we did and just rock up, they might find it very dif­fi­cult to find you a table and you might need to sit out­side on a chilly evening.

This year’s com­pet­i­tion was the second time it had taken place and since it hap­pens only every two years we can look for­ward to the next one in 2012 (and we will keep you up to date with the inform­a­tion). This excit­ing com­pet­i­tion had com­pet­it­ors from South Korea, Cuba, USA, Canada, Italy, England, Australia and South Africa. It was great to see all the flags rep­res­en­ted on stage when the cur­tains opened – this can be thought of as the World Cup of bal­let. Continued

Draftfcb Calls On Nation To Unite Behind Flag Post World Cup

Keep Flying!

Draftfcb South Africa, has respon­ded pos­it­ively to the nation’s post World Cup fears and launched a national cam­paign to retain the energy and pas­sion unleashed by the 2010 spec­tac­u­lar. Speaking in Johannesburg on Friday July 2, Draftfcb South Africa Group CEO, John Dixon, said the agency will act­ively enlist the sup­port of the country’s most loved brands to extend the sense of achieve­ment and self-belief we’ve achieved as a nation over the past few weeks.

Dixon explained: “As South Africans, we have exper­i­enced an unpre­ced­en­ted high dur­ing the World Cup month. Which means, given the proven fact that all host nations have suffered from post-event depres­sion, we’re due for an even lower low when the final teams and soc­cer tour­ists return home ... Continued

Fetching cotton rugs – at Barrydale hand weavers

Barrydale Weavers

It would be pour­ing with rain on the day we visit the hand weavers in Barrydale. We run into what appears to be an old school hall, which we later learn is the town's former 'bio­scope' and are greeted by Tivane, whom I have already met over the week­end at the Montagu Village Market where he can usu­ally be found man­ning a stand selling rugs on a Saturday morning.

He steps down from the stage (it's one of those typ­ical old halls – wooden floors, stage at one end, gal­lery on the other) onto a freez­ing cold floor where we stand shud­der­ing at the com­bin­a­tion of wet and wind, and wel­comes us. Carol is on her way, but in the mean­time, Tivane is more than happy to show us the ropes, quite lit­er­ally, since he runs pro­duc­tion here and has been weav­ing rugs for what must be close to 25 years. Continued

Harvesting hope with my weekly box of vegetables

Harvest of Hope

Every school week a box of veget­ables is dropped off at my son's school with my name on it. It sits, in amongst sim­ilar boxes, await­ing pick-up. It must be said that I often for­get and my box finds its way into the school fridge until I remem­ber the fol­low­ing day to col­lect it.

My pack is always brim­ming over with a vari­ety of fresh veget­ables, picked on the morn­ing of deliv­ery. This might sound pretty obvi­ous, but I have used other box deliv­ery schemes in Cape Town where, because of logist­ics and through no fault of their own, you only receive your veget­ables a couple of days after pick­ing. But this makes a huge dif­fer­ence to the state of your veget­ables (Harvest of Hope's are firm, crisp and FRESH – gor­geous!). Continued

Die Antwoord — a high energy performance

Die Antwoord

Saturday 5 June was all about exper­i­en­cing new things. A good friend has come back to South Africa from his lec­tur­ing job in Spain not to visit his won­der­ful friends but to enjoy the World Cup in his home town, Cape Town. He is always up for a bit of an adven­ture and sug­gest­ing new things so when the call for “who wants tick­ets to Die Antwoord” came I put my hand up although not quite sure of what I’d agreed to.

All I knew of Die Antwoord was that they were a South African band who had become and overnight sen­sa­tion and I had heard one of their songs, some­thing about a but­ter­fly, a samurai and need­ing your pro­duc­tion (turns out pro­duc­tion is actu­ally pro­tec­tion, just so you know). I how­ever handed over my R100 and was ready for any­thing ... Continued

Bafunny Bafunny: SA's Comedy Team for 2010

Barry Hilton

What if Comedy was a sport? Who will rep­res­ent South Africa at the World Cup of Funny?

Enter left wing Bafunny Bafunny – SA’s star-studded Comedy Team fea­tur­ing 8 of the fun­ni­est stand-up comedi­ans from the Host Country, who will tour South Africa with their spe­cial brand of com­edy in the lead-up to the World Cup, to unite the nation through laughter.

Despite their zero sport­ing abil­ity, the stand-up show will keep the sport par­ody alive through­out the tour “fix­tures” with each show, or rather “match”, star­ring the Best in SA Stand-up comedi­ans as “play­ers”, com­plete with a “coach”, a “cap­tain” and big screens with com­ment­at­ors that will keep the “fans” enter­tained dur­ing “half time”. Continued

Cape Town FIFA Fan Fest for the most fun you can have without a ticket

Soccer Fan

The Cape Town FIFA Fan Fest is a must as part of your Cape Town 2010 World Cup exper­i­ence. With the ulti­mate soc­cer atmo­sphere it is def­in­itely the most fun you can have without a ticket!

Every match day the Cape Town FIFA Fan Fest will broad­cast all the FIFA Soccer World Cup matches live on a 70m² screen — to ensure you don’t miss one goal. There is also a daily enter­tain­ment lineup between matches that will blow your mind. This lineup will include a vari­ety of top local per­formers and bands, local DJ’s and new and emer­ging tal­ent. Continued

Perfect weekend fare — breakfast at Caveau and picnics in Kommetjie

Kommetjie

My Saturday was, as per usual a day of eat­ing.  I didn’t feel too guilty about it though because Knysna Half Marathon train­ing has com­menced so I did my sched­uled 3kms on Friday night and wrapped up a quick 5kms on Saturday morn­ing (the views from Boyes Drive make it all worth while)!

Breakfast had been organ­ised for 10am and I met my girl­friends at Caveau in Newlands.  Housed next door to the well known Josephine Mill, Caveau serves break­fast, lunch, din­ner and a deli­cious range of tapas (try the lamb sam­oo­sas or beef cubes with béarnaise sauce — to die for!).  We were there for break­fast though so I had to pass on the lamb Continued

Win tickets to the Good Food & Wine Show in Cape Town

Good Food & Wine

If you are a foodie then you, like me, are prob­ably eagerly anti­cip­at­ing the Good Food and Wine Show which takes place in Cape Town from 13–16 May 2010. Those of you in Johannesburg and Durban have to wait a bit longer as the Johannesburg show takes place from 23–26 September and Durban’s show on 25–28 November.

If you are not one of “those” food people although I think every­one is to a cer­tain extent (who doesn’t love food?) this is the show to get you excited about food. Expect to find the finest South Africa has to offer in food, bever­age and life­style. If that hasn’t got you excited then the inter­na­tional line-up should do the trick... Continued

Travel Contest: The Blog Hop is On

The Blog Hop is On

Here you go — Your Blog Hop Travel Contest Play Card!

• Click here to down­load the play card for this week, April 26^th to May 2^nd.
• Click here to get your play card for future weeks.

Playing the Blog Hop?
You'll find the answer to the ques­tion for this blog by click­ing on the cor­rect art­icles / posts below ... Continued