V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa

The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is Cape Town's most popular centre of shopping and entertainment, created from rehabilitated wharfside sheds and Victorian maritime buildings. It's become less quirkily South African and more 'global' in recent years but the fact that it is still a working harbour sets the V & A apart from other tasteful urban restoration projects. There are hundreds of shops, bars and cafés, all within walking distance of the seven hotels here and it is also the launchplace for the helicopter flips over the city, boat excusrions into Table Bay and the hugely popular boat trip to Robben Island.

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