4- and 5-star hotels in Newlands

Newlands is the wet corner of the Southern Suburbs, about twenty minutes south of the city centre under the eastern buttress of Table Mountain, and it rains here when the City Bowl is dry. Streets like Newlands Avenue and Palmboom Road run under oaks planted more than a century ago, and the whole suburb smells of leaf mould and malt from the brewery on Boundary Road. It is residential to its bones: at 9pm Main Road has traffic and a filling station and very little else.

The hotels on this list sit in that green belt. Fernwood Manor and Authentic Newlands are on the Almond Street and Wiener Road side of the village, while Southern Sun Newlands is on Main Road and Vineyard Hotel on Colinton Road off Protea Road, giving larger grounds and mountain views. Wild Olive Guest House is the one entry over in Claremont, useful for the supermarkets, cinemas and pharmacies Newlands itself refuses to build. It suits hikers heading for Newlands Forest, cricket people walking to Camp Ground Road, families with small children, and anyone who has hired a car. Couples wanting quiet gardens and business travellers wanting a Main Road address are both served, but if you want to walk out at eleven and find a room full of strangers, book Green Point instead.

Getting there and around

Newlands is about twenty minutes south of the city centre under the eastern buttress of Table Mountain, and the M3 runs along its edge. Newlands Forest starts a five-minute drive up the M3, Kirstenbosch is ten minutes up Rhodes Drive, and the Constantia wine farms are fifteen. Park at the Newlands Forest lot off Union Avenue on the M3, cross the bridge and climb the woodcutters' path through the pines to the contour path; go before 9am on weekends or you will not find parking. Rondebosch and Claremont, a short drive away, supply the supermarkets, cinemas and pharmacies.

When to go

Summer brings the cricket: Newlands Cricket Ground on Camp Ground Road is still the best-looking Test venue in the world when the cloud tips over the mountain at teatime, and Test matches sell out, so book accommodation months ahead and expect to pay more. Newlands is the wettest, greenest suburb in the city, collecting well over a metre of rain a year against roughly half that in Sea Point, so pack for damp. The forest trails and the aqueduct pools are best walked early, before the weekend parking at the Union Avenue lot fills.