Simon's Town, Cape Town - Conference Venues Simon's Town Cape Town

Simon's Town - Cape Town Suburb

Cape Town Conferences > Cape Town > Simon's Town

Conference Venues in Simon's Town, Cape Town
Boulders Beach Lodge Conference Venue
Oatlands Holiday and Conference Village
Quayside Hotel Conference Venue

Simon's Town is a village and a naval base in Cape Town. It is located on the shores of False Bay, on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. For more than two centuries it has been an important naval base and harbour (first for the Royal Navy and now the South African Navy). The town is named after Simon van der Stel, an early governor of the Cape Colony. The land rises steeply from near the water's edge and the picturesque village is boxed in along the shoreline by the heights above.

The small harbour itself is not a particularly good natural harbour and is protected from swells by a breakwater that was built with thousands of huge blocks of sandstone quarried out of the face of the mountain above. Simon's Town is the terminus of a railway line that runs south from the central business district of Cape Town. In places the railway line hugs the steep eastern shore of False Bay quite spectacularly and in bad weather foam from some heavy swells will fly up and wet the trains.

Simon’s Town’s historical mile, St George’s Street, has 21 buildings over 150 years’ old and includes a local museum, the navy museum and a toy museum. This stretch also includes the Church of St Francis, said to be the oldest Anglican Church in the country, a Mosque built in 1926, and the Dido Valley Cemetery, filled with gracious headstones made virtually illegible by the salt-laden sea air and wind.

The Simon's Town Waterfront Centre has all the sophistication that you can hope for, while still maintaining the town’s seaside atmosphere. A variety of speciality shops, with a range of products, are within easy reach of the hotel and the town is rapidly gaining a reputation as the culinary capital on the Cape Point Route.

Boulders Beach is located a few kilometres to the south of Simon's Town. Here small coves with white sandy beaches and calm shallow water are interspersed between boulders of Cape granite. There has been a colony of African penguins at Boulders Beach since 1985. There is no record of the birds having lived here prior to that date, so their decision to settle in an area already well-utilized by humans is remarkable. There are only three penguin populations on the mainland in southern Africa; the others are close to Hermanus at Stoney Point and Betty's Bay.

Seaforth beach is also protected from the wind and offers safe swimming and snorkelling and the country club here has a golf course with magnificent sea views. The village is close to Cape Point Nature Reserve - home to 1100 indigenous plant species, some of which occur nowhere else on earth, and one of the highest sea cliffs in the world at 249m above sea level.

Cape Town Suburbs
Bantry Bay, Bellville, Bloubergrant, Bloubergstrand, Brackenfell, Camps Bay, Cape Town Central/City Bowl, Claremont, Constantia, Durbanville, Fish Hoek, Fresnaye, Gordon's Bay, Green Point, Hout Bay, Kenilworth, Lakeside, Melkbosstrand, Milnerton, Muizenberg, Newlands, Noordhoek, Observatory, Parow, Pinelands, Rondebosch, Sea Point, Simon's Town, Sir Lowry's Pass, Somerset West, Strand, Table View, Tokai, Tygerberg.

Map of Sea Point