A Beautiful South African Luxury Train Itinerary
Train itineraries are always beautiful because they speak a lot of the country and its multifarious beauty, and this is what you miss in an enclosed flight. Be it a luxurious ride on the best of trains or just a casual one with the locals, train trips with their sprawling display of landscape have dominated plenty of hearts. Let’s have a look at one of the best train trips around the world:
Cape Town to Pretoria on South Africa's Blue Train: South Africa's charismatic blue train, aimed squarely at tourists, links the stunning Cape Town with Johannesburg. The double glazed windows are toned with pure gold and exotic metals. The display of sheer luxury on this 27-hour journey gifts a perfect match to the mesmerizing views of the Table Mountain through the wine regions of Stellenbosch and Paarl. If you are dying to view this scenery, just pay $23 and get a sleeper. However, the ordinary passenger trains are not air-conditioned and therefore the opened windows are perfect for the panoramic vistas.
There are four suites per coach and a professionally trained butler is on duty on every coach to cater to the needs of his guests. The Club Car is designed along the lines of an old gentleman’s club for those who enjoy a good port wine and after dinner cigar or coffee. A large video screen provides a view of the scenery ahead of the train, courtesy of a camera mounted on the locomotive.
On this journey, you’ll observe the grasslands of the gold-rich highveld and the haunting barrenness of the Great Karoo, then ascend to the highveld through tangles of indigenous forests, with its deep gorges and ancient cliffs, where "living fossils" flourish in the high lying land of the primeval Baobab tree. You’ll slide along past tea estates, trout streams, natural woodlands and vast citrus estates.
Train travel is said to be the perfect illustration of South Africa as a world in one country.
For more information about luxury trains from Road & Travel, click here.
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