Table Mountain backdrop, Cape Town, South Africa
Double-leaf bascule bridge, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa; when down it connects V&A Waterfront proper with the New Basin of the Waterfront Village and the Cape Grace Hotel, immediately to the left in the photo. The forced-focus backdrop of this photo is majestic Table Mountain.
The project management and technical design of this delightful bascule bridge (1996) is by Hytec (Cape) Pty Ltd, under the tutelage of Anton Wale, of old Cape stock. The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront besides being one of the major three tourist destinations in the Cape is also a working harbor with docks and ship repairs and chandlers. The complex - though extensively and thoroughly gentrified in the last ten years - dates from 1860. It was then decided that a new harbor had to be built to replace the four pitiful jetties of Table Bay Harbor, and the harbor also had to be cleared of as many as 24 ships that had sunk there in the course of fierce storms. The first harbor basin named after Prince Alfred, second son to Queen Victoria, was inaugurated by him in 1870, and soon another basin was finished as well, named after his mother. A newer harbor district was necessary in the middle of the twentieth century. Between 1938 and 1946 two enormous docks were built further out to sea: Duncan Dock and Sturroch Graving Dock; others were also constructed. Today, together with Saldanha and Mussel Bay, Cape Town's great harbor can accommodate the largest ocean farers (huge container ships and those modern enormous cruise ships) but also smaller coastal vessels.
The Cape Grace Hotel is one of the world's two or three top hotels. It has an old maritime look but was constructed only in the mid-1990s; the brainchild of 'Chippy' Brand and his son Charles, and the latter's university friend Peter Moore, it boasts a wonderful bar, reportedly with the greatest variation of whiskeys in the southern hemisphere. Appropriate to its location, it is called 'Bascule' and has a pleasant terrace overlooking the new basin.
Table Mountain backdrop, Cape Town, South Africa
Double-leaf bascule bridge, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa; when down it connects V&A Waterfront proper with the New Basin of the Waterfront Village and the Cape Grace Hotel, immediately to the left in the photo. The forced-focus backdrop of this photo is majestic Table Mountain.
The project management and technical design of this delightful bascule bridge (1996) is by Hytec (Cape) Pty Ltd, under the tutelage of Anton Wale, of old Cape stock. The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront besides being one of the major three tourist destinations in the Cape is also a working harbor with docks and ship repairs and chandlers. The complex - though extensively and thoroughly gentrified in the last ten years - dates from 1860. It was then decided that a new harbor had to be built to replace the four pitiful jetties of Table Bay Harbor, and the harbor also had to be cleared of as many as 24 ships that had sunk there in the course of fierce storms. The first harbor basin named after Prince Alfred, second son to Queen Victoria, was inaugurated by him in 1870, and soon another basin was finished as well, named after his mother. A newer harbor district was necessary in the middle of the twentieth century. Between 1938 and 1946 two enormous docks were built further out to sea: Duncan Dock and Sturroch Graving Dock; others were also constructed. Today, together with Saldanha and Mussel Bay, Cape Town's great harbor can accommodate the largest ocean farers (huge container ships and those modern enormous cruise ships) but also smaller coastal vessels.
The Cape Grace Hotel is one of the world's two or three top hotels. It has an old maritime look but was constructed only in the mid-1990s; the brainchild of 'Chippy' Brand and his son Charles, and the latter's university friend Peter Moore, it boasts a wonderful bar, reportedly with the greatest variation of whiskeys in the southern hemisphere. Appropriate to its location, it is called 'Bascule' and has a pleasant terrace overlooking the new basin.