Last March, we took the Blue Train of South Africa from Cape Town to Pretoria. It’s a relaxing two-night journey on beautiful train. If you have the time, this is the best way to get to Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, from the Western Cape. Moreover, you get to see Kimberely, the capital of the beautiful Northern Cape as well.

I’ve been on the Blue Train twice and every moment has been interesting and also relaxing. I love the long meals and the cozy cabins, and the endless amazing views.

EXPERIENCES ON THE BLUE TRAIN

The Blue Train is elegant and old-fashioned. The private suites are spacious and each suite has an ensuite bathroom. In the day, the suites function as comfortable living rooms where you can sit and read, or watch the passing scenery. I so enjoy doing this, and I never tire of the views of South Africa.

Meanwhile, while guests are enjoying a delicious three-course dinner, the train butlers are busy turning the suites into cozy bedrooms. It’s amazing how well planned the suites are because the bedrooms on the Blue Train are just like hotel rooms. In fact, I have had some of my best sleep on this train.

FOOD ON THE BLUE TRAIN

The food on the Blue Train deserves special mention, especially as I have taken this journey twice now. The quality on both trips has been the same.

Breakfast is a nice elaborate meal that invites you to relax and enjoy the morning. It starts with sparkling wine, if you wish, and fruits and cold dishes on a sideboard in the restaurant car. Then you can order your hot dishes from a menu. It’s a wonderful way to start the day on a train.

LUNCH ON A TRAIN

Lunch is also relaxing, and you can choose to sit with other passengers or to have a table to yourselves. Again, it’s a three-course meal accompanied by wines and digestifs at the end. The train is usually moving during lunch so it’s really a nice experience to view South Africa from an elegant restaurant car while having lunch and lots of good South African wines.

SIGHTSEEING IN KIMBERLEY

On this last trip, we arrived at Kimberley, the capital of the Northern Cape, just after lunch. So we had the afternoon to explore the town. The Blue Train organised an interesting excursion to The Big Hole, which is the famous diamond mine of South Africa. It is perhaps the top attraction in Kimberley, if not in the entire Northern Cape.

The Big Hole in the Northern Cape used to be owned by the De Beers diamond company and now it is a museum. You can also still buy diamonds from a shop on the premises in Kimberley.

RELATED CONTENT : THE BEST WILDERNESS RETREAT IN AFRICA

DINNER ON THE TRAIN

We returned to The Blue Train after sightseeing in the Northern Cape just in time for afternoon tea. The bar car is set up prettily for afternoon tea with cakes, fruits and scones. Then there’s just enough time after tea to relax a bit and then start dressing up for dinner.

Dinner on The Blue Train as it passes through the rest of the Northern Cape is formal so most of the guests come in elegant attire. The men are in suits while the ladies are in dresses or long gowns. The meal is formal as well, and everything is delicious.

READ ABOUT THE LAW OF ATTRACTION IN HUNGARY

After dinner, you can retire to the lounge for drinks and music, or head on to the end of the train where there is a quiet sitting area and a casino that uses play money. Making bets at the casino was surprisingly enjoyable — after all, how many people can say they gambled on a train?

WHERE HAS ALL THE TIME GONE?

All too soon, the journey on The Blue Train comes to an end. At the start of the trip, some guests worry about making such a long trip on a train.

“What will we do with all this time?” They say to each other. But time really goes so quickly and soon the train is pulling up to its final stop and passengers are all bidding each other farewell and safe journeys.

Read more stories about traveling by train in South Africa in Travelife Magazine.

The post Riding the Blue Train of South Africa appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

It’s been two years since I rode the Blue Train across South Africa, from the capital of Pretoria to the beautiful city of Cape Town, living a #Travelife.

Nevertheless, I still remember every moment of it, from the excitement of arriving at the old-fashioned train station of Pretoria to the fancy brunches and dinners onboard the train, to sitting in the viewing carriage at the end of the Blue Train to marvel at the loveliness of this part of the world.

On the day of departure, we woke up early at our hotel in Johannesburg to take a car to Pretoria to catch the Blue Train to Cape Town.

The distance between Johannesburg and Cape Town is about 1600 kilometers, and by airplane, from Johannesburg airport, which is the nearest airport for Pretoria, it will take you just under two hours.

However, by the Blue Train, it takes about 30 hours to travel from Pretoria to Cape Town or vice versa, passing through almost the entire length of the wild and remote Northern Cape.

But the journey is the experience in itself.

In fact, it’s an experience like no other — especially in this modern age when everything is instant and people are so impatient to get to their destinations as quickly as possible.

On the Blue Train, it’s all about the voyage, and the people you meet, and the things you see outside your windows as you travel across South Africa at a leisurely pace, just like in the old days.

It was a wonderful way to see a country I’ve grown to love.

I’ve been on several luxury trains before, so I’m quite used to the configurations for these old-fashioned carriages. None of them are spacious enough compared to a hotel suite, for instance, but the luxurious ones are good enough.

And I have to say that the Blue Train is among the most comfortable trains of this class.

The cabins are spacious, the beds are heavenly, and the ensuite bathrooms are positively palatial by train standards.

That’s the ensuite bathroom of the Blue Train

The company onboard is the other attraction.

You really meet very interesting people as most people who take the Blue Train are very experienced travelers with lots of stories to tell.

We met so many nice people on this train.

In fact, we sat next to one British couple by chance at the very first meal — and we liked them so much that we arranged to sit with them at every meal.

This is what brunch was like on that first day, by the way, as we rolled out of Pretoria and past Johannesburg, on our way to the Northern Cape, living a #Travelife.

We began with very nice pink champagne.

Then, anyone who wanted pastries or fruit could have some, as it was brunch.

Within the rather strict confines of this luxury train, a fruit and pastry buffet had been set up very nicely on one side of the Blue Train and passengers could just help themselves after enjoying a glass of bubbly.

For an appetizer, there were several choices but most of us chose the smoked salmon. It was a very nice way to start brunch and an omen of good things to come.

We enjoyed our conversations with this British couple so much that the result was that our table took the full course at each meal and lingered on way past everyone else had left.

We literally took hours to eat every meal, and happily so.

We were easily doing three hours for each meal, accompanied by lots of good food and wonderful wines, journeying across South Africa, and living a never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

———————————-

Check out TRAVELIFEMAGAZINE 

in real-time via your phone or iPad

 

 

———————————-

The post Brunch on board the Blue Train of South Africa, from Pretoria to Cape
Town via Kimberley in the Northern Cape appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

Breakfast on board the beautiful Blue Train, as it crosses the country from Pretoria to Cape Town and back, is an elaborate and elegant affair.

It’s just like in those period movies, really, except the food is probably much better on the Blue Train.

Moreover, it’s a beautiful vintage train, but it’s got every modern convenience, and onboard WiFi to boot.

But going back to that elaborate production for breakfast, it’s really a wonder to think how the Blue Train team manages such a meal, considering it’s a moving train with obviously very limited space.

It’s literally breakfast with “the works.“

Scroll down to read more…

Passengers can dine in the dining car at their leisure, between 7 and 10 AM.

They can also basically sit where they wish, and with whom they wish — or else dine by themselves, too, if they wish.

We chose to share a table with the same British couple we’d been sharing a table with since the Blue Train rolled out of Pretoria Station.

I was the first one to the table, as I was hankering for a pot of rooibos tea early in the morning. Then I set up my laptop to try and do some work until the others arrived.

For breakfast, there is a very nice buffet spread of pastries and fruits, and some cold cuts.

Again, you marvel at the fact that you are staring at two buffet spreads on both sides of a narrow train carriage, as it rolls along 140-year-old train tracks.

After you’re done with the cold foods, you can order hot foods from the menu.

When I opened my breakfast menu, I got very hungry just looking at everything.

It was also quite a novelty to have a leisurely breakfast onboard the Blue Train, so I decided to have three hot courses.

There was nothing on my schedule after all, except to gaze out at the scenery until we  reached Cape Town. So I had breakfast with “the works.”

After my fruit plate and some bread, I had eggs benedict, but with salmon instead of ham.

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know I love eggs benedict with a passion and I have it almost everytime I see it on a menu. At almost every hotel I stay in, everywhere in the world.

But I especially love ordering this in South Africa, where I have yet to find a badly made eggs benedict.

Then I ordered French toast, just because I haven’t had French toast in such a long time.

This was delicious as well.

Finally, I ordered savoury scones with cream cheese, cheddar cheese and lashings of bacon, just because I’d never had this before and it looked interesting.

It was so good, and breakfast ended up a two-hour affair, especially with all my orders.

And then sooner rather than later, we were rolling into Cape Town, to begin another adventure in our never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

The post Breakfast onboard the Blue Train, from Pretoria to Cape Town appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to take the Blue Train.

Living a never-ending Travelife, I’m up for all sorts of adventures.

I especially like trains and cruises — and how lucky, then, that I’m doing this wonderful train journey in South Africa, and also a two-week cruise somewhere in the world, over the next four weeks.

Yes, I literally have 24 hours between my trip to South Africa, and the cruise trip somewhere else in the world.

It’s truly a never-endingly eventful Travelife.

Scroll down to read more…

And tomorrow, I’m off to explore South Africa’s Garden Route, after several blissful days of going around the wine country.

But for now, let me share with you some details of the Blue Train experience.

It’s really an old-fashioned way of traveling — and I mean this in a nice way.

The attire is casual most of the time, save for dinner, when the gentlemen actually don tuxedoes and the women wear fancy dresses and good jewelry.

I decided to wear a colorful but casual long dress, with a hint of Africa on it.

The meals are all elegant, whether it is breakfast or dinner.

Each table setting has a full complement of silverware and each course is plated beautifully and served on porcelain.

Wine — and there is lots of this to accompany every course — is poured into crystal goblets by formal, uniformed servers.

You would think you were not on a train, traversing a desert.

And did I already mention that the food’s delicious?

Meanwhile, the cabins of the Blue Train are among the most comfortable train cabins in the world.

They are very tastefully decorated and quite spacious, especially in the context of a vintage train.

It’s not a hotel suite in terms of size — but when you think that you are on a train, the cabins are quite remarkable.

Each cabin has either a double bed or two twin beds, and either way, the beds are wonderful.

It has flowers, a writing table, adequate storage space, and even a television with on-demand entertainment.

The ensuite bathrooms on the Blue Train are surprisingly large, as well, especially compared with other specialty trains. These are well-appointed, and each has a picture window looking out.

And, while shower stalls are the norm, some cabins even have proper bathtubs.

Best of all, perhaps, especially for me, is that there’s free onboard WiFi. None of these pay-per-minute WiFi systems found on many cruise ships — which often leaves you stuck with a ridiculously high bill, especially if you like to surf the Net.

However, I have to say that the onboard WiFi is intermittent at best. It is a moving train in the middle of nowhere, after all.

Still, it’s way better than having nothing for 30 hours.

I loved our Blue Train experience — so much so that I can’t wait to do another train experience again, sometime sooner than later, in my never-endingly eventful Travelife.

The post The Blue Train experience in South Africa appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.