What to expect travelling to Tulbagh, South Africa: Safe trip to Western Cape

South Africa is really a great country to start your bucket list travel destinations. If you are a traveller from other country and just starting to explore Western Cape, then you might want to put Tulbagh as one of your lists. Here is how you start:

1.    Transportation

One thing that I think this country needs to improve is transportation system. As a student here in South Africa, I mostly rely on Uber to go anywhere, which is not cheap. Decent transportation is not easy to find if you don’t have a car. A car is essential to travel to Tulbagh. Firefly, which collaborated with Hertz, is one option you can consider renting a car where you can find all information on their website. However, maximum distance is only 100km/day or you will be charged R1.8/km for extra distance.

The cheapest car in Hertz

2.    Accommodation (Tulbagh accommodation)

After doing research where to stay in Tulbagh, I can say that Tulbagh Hotel (or it will appear as The Tulbagh Boutique Heritage Hotel in any booking website) is the best hotel in town. The parking lot is totally safe, you can park your car inside the parking area or along the street, the security guard will look after your car for 24-hour. The room is very nice, the combination between modern and traditional design makes it even better. There will be two buildings in Tulbagh Hotel: the main building which is the area for restaurant, spa, and front office, and the second building, just across the road, which is for room, swimming pool, and restaurant. Loadshedding is very nuisance, it is very important to ask the receptionist about the loadshedding schedule and plan your day. However, apart from loadshedding, I really enjoyed my stay in Tulbagh Hotel, very comfortable.

Inside the hotel

Tulbagh hotel room

3.    Restaurant

The Tulbagh hotel itself has the best restaurant in town, The Olive Terrace. We came here during summer, so the weather was very nice! The variety of wines are also impressive as well as the food. I honestly didn’t expect to have such a nice Asian food in such a small village, but they have Beef Chow Mein and that was excellent. For the dessert, located exactly beside the hotel, Cole & Deeg café has an excellent quality food and service. Find their menu on google and try their coffee! The other restaurant that you might have to visit, close to Tulbagh Hotel, is Readers Restaurant, Paddagang Eethui & Fijne Wijne (too bad this restaurant doesn’t do wine testing anymore). There is also Rijk’s Restaurant where you can do wine testing and lunch at the same time. I recommend you to try their mussel menu, which is very nice combined with wine testing!

Mussel Pot

Beef chow mein

From those restaurants, I personally like The Olive Terrace Hotel for lunch and dinner, not because it is the place we stayed but because the variety of the food is surprisingly extraordinary in a place like Tulbagh. For breakfast and dessert, I recommend you to go to Cole & Deeg café, they have an impressive menu.

4.    Wine Farm

There are number of wine farms that I would recommend you to visit. Each wine farms have different character and scenery. Here are the lists that I have visited and enjoyed so far:

Montpellier Tulbagh

This place is an accommodation as well as a wine farm that has a very unique concept. Although I visited Montpellier only for wine testing, I can say the concept of the forest and gardens they provide to visitors is magnificent. For wine testing, you will feel the peace of tall trees, chirping birds, and beautiful music. I really like the way they take visitors on a tour of the wine testing: follow the music! However, since I'm not a fan of sparkling wine, which is their unit selling point, I prefer red wine over their sparkling wine. But if you are a big fan of sparkling wine, I'm sure you would enjoy the beautiful nature around combined with old colonial buildings. Very unique!

Montpellier Tulbagh

Saronsberg

To satisfy your needs of art and wine at the same time, Saronsberg is the right place for you. On the second floor, you will find the art gallery which is very beautiful and artistic. The wines selection is also nice, their red wines are selected as one of the best wine competitions in South Africa and somewhere in Europe. Please be aware of the busy day on the weekend and please come before 4. I would say the service was not really nice because we went there almost closing time, but the stunning modern and artistic wine cellar with a spectacular view is worth trying. You only need to pay R100 for 7 different wine testing! Fantastic.

One of the art 

Saronsberg Tulbagh 

The view from the main building

Manley

We were very lucky to have the owner of Manley as our sommelier. With the new owner of Manley from Germany, Markus Ehehalt, he brings new concept of Manley to the people. So far, Manley is one of my favourite wine cellars in Tulbagh. I honestly forgot how much it was exactly for wine testing, but it was less than R100 and FREE wine testing if you buy a bottle of wine. Their Shiraz is a must try here! We didn’t have a chance to try their food because we came soon after late breakfast as they didn’t serve food that early. However, I believe you would enjoy your stay with Manley because the surrounding area is fabulous.

New Owners

The view

Rijk’s Wine estate

The first time I set foot in this place I felt nothing special. Maybe it will be different if you stay here, because they have a wine and hotel club concept. Once inside, you will be provided with an attractive mountain view. For me, there is nothing special about this place other than the food. The wine testing we did wasn't too bad but none of the points made us happy. However, the food we ordered was Mussel Pot (R85) and it tasted really good! Wine testing becomes valuable with the Mussel Pot. Try it!

Rijk's Restaurant

Lemberg Wine estate

Lemberg is a dark and mysterious place. For me, there is nothing I can enjoy here. If you are only visiting this place for wine testing, I don't think it's a very good place. But you can still enjoy the beautiful view because basically all wineries in Tulbagh are surrounded by amazing mountains. I personally didn't try to do wine testing as this was the fourth place we visited and I didn't feel good doing wine testing anymore. However, we bought red wine at a special price. They have several bottles of wine that are not worth selling due to packaging errors, but still have the same quality. For half the price we bought 2 bottles of shiraz and took them home. Such a great deal!

Ultimately, for me, visiting Tulbagh is all about the wine, scenery, old building and food. Whether you stay in a hotel with breakfast or in a self-catering accommodation, I believe you will be in love with what this place can offer you. However, as I always do, please lower your expectation when you’re travelling anywhere because when you put it high, you won’t enjoy Tulbagh as much. But personally, Tulbagh is beyond my expectation. Cheers!

Tulbagh Hotel