Paarl — overlooked pearl of the Western Cape

Quaint houses

The town of Paarl is lit­er­ally on my door­step. I've driven past it on the N1 numer­ous times and yet not vis­ited. But this week­end was an excep­tion. I needed to right a wrong and take a look at a town that more than met my expect­a­tions and, in fact, left me spell­bound by its gor­geous archi­tec­ture, his­tory, per­petual vis­tas of vine­yards, and quaintness.

Paarl is but 45 minutes' drive from Cape Town, yet it might as well be miles away (aside from the fact that you can see Table Mountain on a clear day). It's the largest town in the Cape wine­lands, the third old­est European set­tle­ment in South Africa, boasts the longest main street in the coun­try — all 12 kilo­metres of it — littered with build­ings of his­tor­ical note, boasts its own wine route, and has a huge gran­ite out­crop that glistens just like a pearl, hence the town's name, in the sun­light after a down­pour. Not only that, but it's also full of vineyards ...

The name of the town is some­thing of an idio­syn­crasy. Despite being spelt 'Paarl' in both English and Afrikaans, it is pro­nounced 'Pêrel' in Afrikaans, and people are often heard to say 'in die Pêrel'. And all of this super­flu­ous inform­a­tion per­tains to the huge rock, which is actu­ally three roun­ded out­crops that make up Paarl Mountain — the largest such pro­tru­sion in the south­ern hemi­sphere, which des­pite being com­pared with Uluru, doesn't really come close, yet def­in­itely has some­thing spe­cial about it.

Paarl is also just about the only town in the Western Cape to have its tour­ist inform­a­tion office open on a Sunday, even if the rest of Paarl at 10am is oth­er­wise occu­pied in activ­it­ies of a more celes­tial nature. And there's the Afrikaanse Taalmonument, stand­ing on the slopes of Paarl Mountain, the most fam­ous Afrikaans icon com­mem­or­at­ing the Afrikaans lan­guage as an offi­cial lan­guage, sep­ar­ate from Dutch; some­thing of an icon but inter­est­ing non­ethe­less — pick up a pamph­let explain­ing the sym­bol­ism behind the struc­ture from the tour­ist info.

Take the time to drive Paarl's Main Road slowly and you'll find that it includes the old­est church build­ing in the coun­try, the old­est pub, the headquar­ters of the country's old­est cel­lar, and a most unusual Gymnasium. There are numer­ous art gal­ler­ies, hand-crafted jew­ellery, and a million-and-one quaint eat­er­ies and cof­fee shops in a host of Cape Dutch, Victorian, Edwardian and Art Deco build­ings. The town, des­pite all of these claims to fame, would man­age just fine attract­ing vis­it­ors purely for its beauty.

Paarl is littered with upmar­ket, lux­ury guest houses and accom­mod­a­tion that is an attract­ive option even for Capetonians want­ing a quick get­away. There is also the rather glor­i­ous addi­tion of a 'vineyard-in-town' exper­i­ence that is La Borie (also known as La Brie), bought by KWV in 1972, who restored the beau­ti­ful old buildings.

But it is not Paarl's Main Road alone that is fas­cin­at­ing. Take the time to head off from the main road, still in the centre of Paarl, to explore a little fur­ther. We found ourselves, quite by acci­dent, driv­ing around Buitenverwagting and Bertville, up to Lemoenkloof. This part of town is filled with gor­geous, restored Victorian rendi­tions that are at once charm­ing and per­fectly lovely, situ­ated vir­tu­ally up against the moun­tain in quirky little side roads and aven­ues, in sim­ilar style to Woodstock or Observatory in Cape Town, but without quite the same price tags (those are left for Paarl's golf estates).

On Mill Street, in the same neck of the woods, you'll find the Old Mill Theatre with a long his­tory in Paarl's theatre scene — an obscure, plain little build­ing, and a com­munity theatre that comes into its own dur­ing the Cultivaria Festival dur­ing September, but oth­er­wise can be hired as a venue by pro­fes­sional enter­tain­ers and oth­ers (and it isn't expens­ive to hire).

And if it's wine you're here to sample, then look no fur­ther than Paarl's main road, where the Juno Wine Company (they of the unusual Cape maid­ens labels painted by Tertia du Toit) have their own Café Juno. They're a refresh­ingly unpre­ten­tious bunch who don't take them­selves ter­ribly ser­i­ously. Their café too prom­ises uncom­plic­ated, deli­cious break­fasts and lunches includ­ing freshly baked baguettes, ciabat­tas and rye loaves. It helps that the café houses the stu­dio and gal­lery of Tertia du Toit, the artist to grace their bottles with a never-ending sup­ply of maid­ens, although they also pro­duce an Arthouse series of wines, minus the nymphs.

Also on Main Road is 10 Chapters Wine Bar, which began with a ques­tion that went some­thing like 'what if we made a bottle of wine that rep­res­en­ted South Africa?' What fol­lowed was an invit­a­tion to every wine cel­lar in the coun­try to donate three bottles of red wine. The idea: to achieve a world first by blend­ing all of these into a 'South Africa in a bottle'. The final year Stellenbosch wine­mak­ing stu­dents behind the idea received 663 bottles from 221 winer­ies in 10 wine­mak­ing regions and blen­ded them together to make a wine called 10 Chapters, said to be 'dan­ger­ously enjoy­able'. The bar serves a vari­ety of South African wines by the glass with a menu that includes cheese plat­ters, snack bowls, bruschet­tas and dessert tapas.

Paarl's wines tend to fall in the shadow of other of the wine­lands' routes – Franschhoek and Stellenbosch are the draw cards, whilst Paarl can be con­sidered charm­ing and pretty... yet des­pite hav­ing to fight this Cinderella com­plex, the val­ley is com­ing out from under the shadow and is amongst those wines being 'dis­covered' – to quote Alan Nelson of Nelson's Creek, it's 'the hid­den pearl of the SA wine industry'.

And there is some­thing for every­one. Head out to Domaine Brahms in the Windmeul area of Paarl. It's not only a stun­ning venue, includ­ing the quaintest chapel around, but the story behind the wines is entran­cing, includ­ing a woman wine maker who hung up her advoc­ate gown to don the boots of a wine maker, or Avondale now in the hands of the Grieve fam­ily, also behind Vital Health products, for organic wines. And don't for­get the older more estab­lished wine farms like Simonsvlei (I can recom­mend their spark­ling wine!) and Nederberg.

Despite being over­looked for being but a stone's throw away from Cape Town, Paarl really is a 'pearl' and well worth not only a day's visit, but a week­end away.

Paarl Links:
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