I'm normally not a morning person.
But by 5am on my first day in Cape Town, the sun has risen high enough to peel back the curtain of night and reveal the majesty of Table Mountain. My balcony at the One & Only Cape Town hotel provides a front-and-centre seat for this morning tableau.
Sleep no longer interests me.
I sip hot tea, nibble the chocolate truffle left during turndown service the night before, slide open the doors and take in the view.
Behind me, there are tributes, interviews and news about Nelson Mandela on the television. The "Father of the Nation" died two days ago.
I remember something I'd read in a guidebook: When Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, he'd look across the bay to Table Mountain and see a beacon of future freedom.
On summer afternoons, strong breezes nudge the clouds to a hover over the mountain, creating an effect that locals call a "white tablecloth".
During this national period of mourning for Mandela, the evidence could not be more tangible that Cape Town is a place that stays firmly grounded in its history yet bursts at the seams with excitement for its future.
Almost nowhere is this more easily experienced than on a culinary tour of the city and its outlying wine region.
Cape Town has become a new frontier for chefs around the world, such as Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, who opened his restaurant Nobu in the city in 2009.
At every turn, it's also possible to savour the traditional dishes, speckled and spiced with global influences, that helped shaped the region.
On a sunny Saturday morning, locals pack in, elbow to elbow, to the Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill, a bustling "village" of restaurants, cafes and shops.
Local vendors sell organic dried fruit, dozens of types of mushrooms, freshly baked macaroons, flatbread pizzas, pork belly pies, ice cream and hundreds of other products and foods.
I arrive with a small group on an excursion with two Cape Town food and travel experts, Dawn Jorgensen and Ishay Govender-Ypma, who run The Food and the Fabulous tour.
Before 11am, I've tasted craft beers from Darling Brew, sipped a tall rooibos iced tea, chewed on tuna Biltong (a South African jerky) and sampled a favourite local pastry called a Flying Dutchman.
This is just one example, our guides tell us, of an emerging "market culture" in Cape Town and a new commitment to support local farmers and food purveyors.
The Old Biscuit Mill is where British chef Luke Dale-Roberts opened his fine-dining restaurant The Test Kitchen to rave reviews in 2010. In 2012, he followed up with the critically praised The Pot Luck Club, on the sixth floor in the silo of the Biscuit Mill.
With the summer sun searing, our "fab food" tour later takes us a step further back in time, to the Bo-Kaap, or Cape Malay Quarter of town.
Once the home of freed slaves, the predominantly Muslim area - site of the oldest mosque in the country - has had an indelible influence on South African cuisine. A resident of the area guides us up and down the hilly cobblestone streets and leads us into a spice shop, where we can smell and taste the aromas and flavours - coriander, turmeric, garlic - that make this cooking, brought here in the 17th and 18th centuries by slaves from the Dutch East Indies, so distinct.
In the early evening, we find ourselves at the Beerhouse, a new watering hole on vibrant Long Street that has 99 different beers on the menu. We sample 12 brews, before having dinner, which is a traditional sausage called boerewors at the the Gourmet Boerie cafe.
Less than an hour's drive out of Cape Town, rows and rows of vineyards climb the mountainsides. Traditional white Cape Dutch-style homes dot the landscape, and bright pink bougainvillea grows next to the road in this picturesque countryside.
With its mild Mediterranean climate and limited rainfall, the Western Cape region has been home to a wine industry dating to the 1600s. Today, wines from the region are scoring ratings higher than French Burgundies in worldwide competitions.
The first of two wine tastings of the day comes in Stellenbosch at Tokara, a sprawling operation that produces a variety of site-specific wines. My favourite in a tasting of eight wines is the 2012 Director's Reserve white, a blend of 74 per cent sauvignon blanc and 26 per cent semillon grapes.
We later drive to the town of Paarl, to the Nederburg winery.
Founded in 1791, Nederburg is one of the region's best known wineries, recognised around the world not just for its award-winning wines but for its place in South African wine history.
After a tasting of more than a dozen wines - my favorite is another white, a blend of eight grapes called Ingenuity.
We sit on outdoor benches, relax on swings in the big trees and sink our feet into the lush lawn as we sip our last glasses of wine before heading back to the city.
Back in Cape Town, as the sun sinks lower and the sky grows pinker on my last night, I spot it: the white tablecloth. Rolling in and spreading out over Table Mountain.
It makes my last sunset in this city as memorable as the first sunrise.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE: South African Airways, www.flysaa.com.
WHERE TO STAY:
One&Only Cape Town: capetown.oneandonlyresorts.com.
Le Quartier Francais, Franschhoek: www.lqf.co.za.
WHERE TO EAT:
The Old Biscuit Mill, www.theoldbiscuitmill.co.za
Nobu, www.noburestaurants.com/cape-town
Reuben's, reubens.co.za
WHAT TO DO:
The Food and The Fabulous food tours, www.foodandthefabulous.com/fab-food-tours
Tokara winery, www.tokara.co.za
Nederburg winery, www.nederburg.com/za
(Note: The Food and The Fabulous tours and private wine country tours can be arranged through One&Only Cape Town for guests of the hotel.)
MORE INFORMATION: For information on local activities, including Robben Island and Table Mountain, visit www.capetown.travel.
