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Explore Cape Town, then journey across South Africa to Pretoria in utter comfort on the luxurious Rovos Railway.

Chamber music and champagne on the station platform is the welcome to passengers traveling from Cape Town to Pretoria with Rovos Rail -- a preview of luxuries to come. This journey across the Karoo begins in a historic city and ends in an administrative capital, with plenty of luxury along the way.

Exploring Cape Town

We had spent four days at the foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town, a picturesque city founded in the 18th century by the Dutch East India Company as a supply depot for ships plying the spice trade. Awakening from its Victorian past in the 21st century, the city boasts world-class hotels as well as historic colonial buildings.

This port city's past is recaptured by the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront district, known as the V&A. Children flock there daily, with parents, nannies and school groups, mingling with visitors from all over the globe who come to see tugs, pilot boats, ferries and other fascinating aspects of a working harbor, then to be mesmerizes by jugglers, mime artistes, rock'n'roll bands, magicians, sword-swallowers, and fire-eaters who entertain those who care to watch and listen, and perhaps contribute a few Rand (US$1=R 7.37) in appreciation.

It's also a Mecca for shoppers and tastemakers. Here, African crafts from Natal, neighboring Mozambique, Tanzania and Namibia vie for attention with the latest from Nike, post leather goods from Italy and yes, genuine safari gear. The V&A also caters to all taste buds with restaurants in every budget.

A short drive south, en route to the Cape of Good Hope, was Hout Bay for a launch trip to Seal Rocks. This spectacle of thousands of seals sunning themselves on the boulders, cavorting in the surf, diving for fun, it seems, as well as for food, was an amazing sight. Even the penguins were amused. Standing at The Fairest Cape, not quite the southern-most tip of Africa (Cape Agulhas has that distinction), and gazing south it was hard to believe there's nothing but ocean until Antarctica; to the right the south Atlantic, to the left the Indian Ocean.