Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

Kirstenbosch is one of the great botanical gardens of the world — 528 hectares on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain that are devoted exclusively to the indigenous flora of Southern Africa, making it the only botanical garden in the world to be set within a natural World Heritage Site. The garden was established in 1913 by botanist Harold Pearson on land bequeathed to the nation by Cecil Rhodes, and the combination of cultivated gardens, natural fynbos, and the mountain rising directly behind creates a setting that no amount of landscape design could improve.

The Centenary Tree Canopy Walkway ('Boomslang') is a 130-metre steel-and-timber bridge that winds through and above the tree canopy, providing a snake-like elevated walk through the treetops with views of the garden below and the mountain above. The walkway — designed by Mark Thomas Architects and opened in 2014 — has become the garden's most popular feature, and the perspective of looking down into the canopy rather than up at it reveals the forest structure in a way that ground-level walking can't.

The garden's speciality is the Cape Floral Kingdom — the smallest of the world's six floral kingdoms and the most biodiverse. The fynbos section, with its proteas, ericas, and restios, showcases plants that exist nowhere else on Earth. The summer sunset concerts (held on the main lawn on Sunday evenings from November through April) are one of Cape Town's most beloved traditions — bring a picnic blanket, a bottle of South African wine, and sit on the lawn as the sun sets behind Table Mountain while live music fills the garden.