Franschhoek and the wine tram

The breeze sometimes is still quite fresh in the spring in this tiny town, where a small group of French refugees settled in the 17th century. When the sun shines in the vine yards, flanked by the mountains, the landscape is absolutely stunning.. Spring in Franschhoek is colored with bright green and various colors of  the new blossom.

The town is so small that one would probably not visit it if not for its wineries and famous wine tram. The wine tram is basically a hop on and hop off bus/train that take guests from one wine estate to another, so one can fully enjoy the wine tasting, pairing with chocolate and biltong (a sort if dried meat in South Africa, like beef jerky). There are 9 estates on our blue route. They give you minimum one hour to stay in one winery before one can be picked up by the bus again. What makes us wonder is, we see the same driver and conductor every time we hop on the bus. They must be driving around the circle non stopping for the whole day. For the winery hosting the guests, checks are prepaid before the bus arrived. I can’t help wondering, whether they get bored by this routine. Each of them get six rounds of tourists in one day, so they have to repeat this routine punctual like the clock.


Most of the wine estates are pretty old, established in the 17 centuries. Our last stop was a ride with the tram on an old rail track which was used for the passenger trains. We were told that from end of October, the trams are running full six days a week. We were here in mid of October so the wine crowd hasn't appeared yet.

The wine tram experience is so nice, that we think we should reinvent this back to Europe. Why not?


Useful facts:

There are different routes marked by colors.
Book the tram: http://winetram.co.za/

La Bri has wonderful wine and chocolate pairing
La Bourgogne offers 2 glasses complementary  wine and their cheese platter is very generous.
Be punctual about the pick up time. We were surprised how on the clock the bus drives. We witnessed a mother and daughter pair missed the bus by 2 minutes. Later on we got to know that it's not uncommon that guests miss the pick up. They usually send a separate bus to pick the left guests up when it happens.