One Young World 2013 was held in Johannesburg, in South Africa, and a group of us wanted to take advantage of having travelled so far to see a bit more of the country. And this is how we found ourselves in Cape Town! Ever since I booked it my friends have been enthusing about Cape Town – one even went so far as to say it was the most beautiful place in the entire world.

          We stayed at an cutely decorated and dirt-cheap hostel called 33 South Backpackers in Observatory, which is in the student area and has a young, bohemian feel to it. A word of warning: Observatory is a suburb and as public transport is practically non-existent, you’ll be taking taxis everywhere. After lunch at the V&A Waterfront, accompanied by a Marimba band (watch this YouTube video to get a feel for it!), we hopped onto a City Sightseeing Bus to get our bearings around the city. Despite not usually being a fan of such a touristy way to explore a city, I would really recommend the open-top bus, which for 115 Rand (equivalent to £7) showed us around the centre, took us up to Table Mountain and then took us along the coastal road during sunset all the way back to the Waterfront where we indulged in some delicious food and wine at Belthazar.

          Now – onto Table Mountain. You can’t quite prepare yourself for the beauty you find once you reach the top, at 1085m. You can either hike it (which takes about 2.5 hours and is very steep) or there’s a cable car that takes under a minute. A picture is worth a 1,000 words so instead of ramble on, I’ll let you see the view for yourself in my photos below.

          It’s so utterly peaceful up there that you almost feel as if you’re floating above the city and the harbour below.

          We timed our descent particularly well and caught the sunset over the horizon as we wound our way back to Cape Town through so seriously luxurious neighbourhoods and some very tempting palm-tree fringed beaches.

          Dinner by the water at Belthazar was exquisite – definitely ask for Luke the sommelier to pick out one of their 600 wines for you, he was extremely entertaining.