I ♥ Greyton Because ...

I ♥ Greyton

Hi, I’m Gemma Downing from The Farmhouse in Greyton.

Greyton IS BEST KNOWN FOR its oak tree lined streets and mag­ni­fi­cent Riviersonderend Mountains.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN whilst bob­bing about in the Gobos River — so refreshing.

THE BEST still life PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN in the sur­round­ing moun­tains early in the morn­ing when the spider webs are drip­ping with dew. Its magical!

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS all over the vil­lage ... includ­ing the Saturday morn­ing mar­ket. Continued

Gorgeous Greyton — Photographs

The gor­geous vil­lage of Greyton, loc­ated in the Cape Overberg and sur­roun­ded by farm­lands and the Riviersondered Mountains is a very man­age­able 90 minute drive from Cape Town and is just per­fect for a week­end get­away.  The vil­lage has a num­ber of super res­taur­ants and delis so a decent cof­fee and a loaf of artisan bread is easy to find … if that is what you are look­ing for.  The Greyton Market takes place every Saturday from 10am to mid­day; thing to try would be the lemon curd pan­cakes, the homemade lem­on­ade, the heavy with meat pies, the pes­tos – actu­ally the list is endless.

The oak lined streets, beau­ti­fully restored cot­tages and pretty gar­dens make Greyton pic­ture per­fect. There is loads to do; from walk­ing or cyc­ling in the moun­tains, ambling the streets, eat­ing at the many eat­er­ies, hik­ing to McGregor, vis­it­ing his­tor­ical build­ings or hunt­ing for antiques – the list is end­less.  Or of course you can just relax in the sun­shine and enjoy the views! Continued

Vanilla Café – slow life in Greyton continues with breakfast, lunches and high teas

Vanilla Café

Putting a bouncy castle in your back garden is an almost full proof guar­an­tee of cli­entèle. Or at least, those of a cer­tain age group. If you're in the pres­ence of a four-year old, there is vir­tu­ally no stronger mag­net. 'Mom, it's a jumpy castle!' emit­ted together with a gasp of excite­ment and much hand tug­ging, and before long, we're sit­ting in the sun dappled — dis­turbed inter­mit­tently by rain – garden amidst much tree climb­ing and blown up castle jump­ing – the things that please small people!

But it wasn't all that bad. I mean, for us adults. On the con­trary, Vanilla Café was some­thing of a find, con­sid­er­ing it was right next door to our accom­mod­a­tion and one of the few child-friendly res­taur­ants in Greyton ... Continued

Visiting Genadendal

Genadendal

Tourist bro­chures speak about Genadendal as a 'must do' when in Greyton. The quaint little his­tor­ical vil­lage just six kilo­metres out­side of Greyton is described as the old­est Moravian mis­sion vil­lage on the con­tin­ent, never mind South Africa, and as a vil­lage 'frozen in the past' with streets of gor­geously neat little thatched white-walled cottages.

This descrip­tion is partly true — the care­fully main­tained his­tory and build­ings are beau­ti­ful. Some of them date back as far as 1738 and a visit here is def­in­itely worth it to soak up the his­tory of this mis­sion­ary town. But what descrip­tions don't include is that to reach the care­fully main­tained his­tor­ical build­ings, you have to drive through the abject poverty that is Genadendal's outly­ing com­munity. Continued

Von Geusau — the chocolates, the man, the story ...

Von Geasau Chocolates

I used to be a choco­holic. There, I've said it. What a relief. Now that it's out of the way, I think that I should also share that I was over my addic­tion. Totally. Could walk past a bar of chocol­ate and not turn a hair. You could crack a bar in my pres­ence and I would con­tinue a con­ver­sa­tion without even a glot­tal stop. Until this weekend.

Was it my fault that Blossom Cottage, the gor­geous little restored self-catering accom­mod­a­tion in Greyton on Ds Botha Street, was dir­ectly across the road from Von Geusau's out­let? I am not entirely sure if it was fate or provid­ence. But the mere sight of Von Geusau's delect­ably hand wrapped chocol­ates caught me. Reeling. Intent on a taste if it was the last thing that I did ... Continued

Never quite so happy as when in Greyton

Greyton

There are a couple of things you don't real­ise at first about Greyton by view­ing it on a map. One is that the quaint town is at the end of a road, it is not a thor­ough­fare (so no trundling trucks at mid­night), and the other is that it is undeni­ably one of the most beau­ti­ful towns in the Western Cape. I say this unreservedly.

Greyton is a quaint little English-style vil­lage just bey­ond the mis­sion town of Genadendal, on the east side of the Theewaterskloof dam, and on the other side of the Riviersonderend moun­tain range from McGregor. Actually, there is a hike you can do through the beau­ti­ful range of moun­tains from one vil­lage to the other, but con­sid­er­ing that on this occa­sion the moun­tain peaks were tipped with snow, we decided to give it a miss (to be hon­est, hik­ing across great swathes of moun­tain has never been my strong point and, con­sid­er­ing that the Boesmanskloof Trail is often done as a there-and-back hike, I was smil­ing pret­tily!). Continued

Greyton Winter Classical Music Festival coming up in June

Classical Music Fest

Some won­der­ful events are in store for us in the upcom­ing months and even though South Africa is bub­bling with soc­cer fever it does not mean that some of the well known and well loved events will not take place while the 2010 world cup is here. The events will still be hap­pen­ing and one you are sure to enjoy is the Greyton Winter Classical Music Festival which takes place on 12 and 13 June 2010.

Presented by the Greyton Tourism Association, this is the second year of the event, and you can expect no less than five con­certs per­formed by some of the country’s top clas­sical musi­cians in the quiet towns of Greyton and Genadendal. Although a clas­sical music fest­ival has been held in the area over the past five years it has only been since 2009 that the this fest­ival joined forces with the Greyton Winter Festival to become a firm fix­ture on the clas­sical music cal­en­dar of South Africa ... Continued

Photos of Greyton

Go where the loc­als go ... Well trav­elled Guest House own­ers, Pam and Steve Lord (Cape Rose Cottage in Camps Bay), are reg­u­lar vis­it­ors to the charm­ing vil­lage of Greyton. Says Pam; "It is so beau­ti­ful out there — one of my favour­ite places in the world". Pam took a series of pho­to­graphs on a recent week­end get­away to Greyton which she has kindly allowed us to share ... Continued