6-Nights Icons of Southern Africa

Johannesburg

Johannesburg's contrasts are some of the most extreme in the world; poverty-stricken and overcrowded Alexandra is surrounded by some of the richest suburbs in South Africa, and downtown hundreds of homeless struggle to survive around the Stock Exchange. The contrast between suburb and township is mirrored nationwide, but is more extreme here because of the intense wealth of many of the suburbs, and the sheer size of the townships and their satellite squatter camps. Yet the city as a whole continues to suck in people and skills from all over the country, making it the financial, commercial and cultural powerhouse of South Africa.

Cape Town

Cape Town is southern Africa's most beautiful, most romantic and most-visited city. Few urban centers anywhere can match its setting along the Cape Peninsula spine, which slides like the mighty tail of the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. By far the most striking - and famous - of its sights is Table Mountain, frequently mantled by clouds, and rearing up from the middle of the city to provide a constantly changing vista to the suburbs below. Table Mountain is the city's solid core which divides the city into distinct zones with public gardens, wilderness, forests, hiking routes, vineyards and desirable residential areas trailing down it's lower slopes.