When fans watch the final games of 2010’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa, they will be doing so at the sweeping new Cape Town Stadium, a 68,000-capacity structure designed by the German architect’s studio GMP in partnership with two local firms. This state-of-the-art stadium has been arranged much like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, which together support a glass roof high above the pitch, and then covered in a fibreglass mesh ‘skin’. Sixteen lifts will ensure that fans have easy access to their seats and noise reduction measures are optimum. Apart from its architectural merits, Cape Town Stadium is situated in one of the most beautiful locations in one the most stunning cities in the world. Green Point forms part of Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard, that stretches the along the Western periphery of the city and contains the most luxurious properties, stunning beaches and picturesque public pleasure grounds. With the majestic Table Mountain – Cape Town’s most famous natural landmark – on one side and the glittering Atlantic on the other, the stadium is surrounded by the city’s most extensive urban park, with sports fields, a golf course and promenade thronged with skaters, runners and strollers day and night. Green Point is located a short distance from the V&A waterfront, Cape Town’s sprawling harbour. With a multitude of shops, bars and outdoor restaurants, sunset cruise launches, outdoor exhibitions and blubbery seals sunning in the docks, the V&A waterfront is a buzzing seaside attraction, and contains a handful of the city’s top sites. The Two Oceans Aquarium houses a myriad of creatures from the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, including a thrilling ‘Predator’s Tank’, whilst the SA Maritime Museum boasts a fantastic array of model ships. For a chilling reminder of the apartheid era, and the price South Africa paid for democracy, catch a boat to the World Heritage-listed Robben Island Museum, the fort-prison that kept Nelson Mandela’s incarcerated for 18 years.

Since 2006 Holiday Velvet offers Cape Town accommodation.