Table Mountain Aerial Cableway

Table Mountain is the reason Cape Town looks like nowhere else. Its flat summit, more than a thousand metres above the city, runs for about three kilometres between Devil's Peak and Lion's Head, and on many days a white tablecloth of cloud pours over its edge. The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway has been carrying visitors to the top since 1929, and the current cars are round and have a floor that turns through a full circle during the ride, so everyone in the cabin gets the view down the cliffs, across the City Bowl and out to sea. The trip from the lower station on Tafelberg Road takes only a few minutes. At the top, a network of easy paved and gravel paths leads to viewpoints over Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles on one side and the city, the harbour and Robben Island on the other, with signboards on the plants and animals of the plateau: the mountain is part of the Cape Floral Region, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the richest plant kingdoms on earth, and dassies, the rock hyraxes that look like large guinea pigs but are related to elephants, sun themselves on the rocks. There is a cafe and a shop at the upper station, and the short loop walks take thirty to sixty minutes. The single most important fact for planning is that the cableway only runs when the weather allows. Strong wind, especially the south-easter that blows hard through the summer, and low cloud close it, sometimes for a whole day and sometimes for a few hours, so the best advice in Cape Town is to go up on the first clear, calm morning of your trip rather than saving it for later. The annual maintenance shutdown, held in the quiet winter season, ran from 27 July to 9 August in 2026, so the cableway is fully operating for the summer peak.

The cableway is one of the oldest in the world still in commercial use, though almost nothing about it is original. The first wooden cars of 1929 carried a couple of dozen passengers; the system was rebuilt several times, and the present rotating cars, introduced in the late 1990s, carry up to about 65 people. Each holds water tanks in its floor that act as ballast in wind and supply the upper station. In 2011 Table Mountain was named one of the New7Wonders of Nature, which only added to its popularity. Hikers have their own relationship with the mountain: the classic route straight up the front is Platteklip Gorge, a steep, stepped climb of two to three hours that many people combine with a cable car ride down, and there are longer and harder routes from Kirstenbosch and the back table.

How to visit well: buy tickets online in advance, which saves the ticket queue and lets you choose a time, and check the cableway's live weather status the morning you plan to go. A return ticket is standard; a one-way ticket suits hikers. Fast-track options skip the boarding queue, which is useful in December and January when the wait at the lower station can be long. Mornings tend to be clearer and calmer; late afternoon gives golden light and the sunset view, but watch the time of the last car down. It is often ten degrees cooler on top than in the city and very windy, so bring a jacket even on a hot day, plus sunscreen and water. The lower station is reached by taxi or ride-hailing, the City Sightseeing bus or a steep walk up Tafelberg Road; parking along the road fills early in season.

Who it suits: everyone, from toddlers to grandparents, since the summit paths are mostly level and there is wheelchair access on some routes. Couples should aim for a clear late afternoon. Photographers should look east along the cliffs towards Devil's Peak and west to Lion's Head and the Atlantic. If the cableway is closed during your stay, do not despair: the view from Lion's Head or Signal Hill is the next best thing, and the mountain looks equally impressive from below.