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Bronwyn and her husband recently celebrated their anniversary at the Boschenmeer Grande Lodge in Paarl.
We recently got to spend two nights in celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary at Boschenmeer Grande Lodge in Paarl. After settling our 2-year old in for two nights with her grandparents we set off. Paarl is an amazing place to get away from the pressure of everyday life, yet it's only a relatively short drive from Cape Town. We got to the main gate within an hour of leaving home and were greeted by the gate guard who was very thorough in processing us and letting us through. It's strange how we tend to get impatient with someone taking all of 6 minutes to do a thorough and complete job! We were very appreciative of her friendliness and realised that in the grand scheme of things waiting a few minutes for someone to do their job well is a very small price to pay.
After finding the reception we were welcomed by Megan who was very friendly and explained everything that we needed to know, answered our questions and handed us an envelope with our wifi vouchers, room keycard and a gate keycard. After hearing that we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary, Megan gave us a complementary bottle of champagne too!
We were shown to our room and settled in. We decided on dinner at the clubhouse and had an incredible "surf and turf"- the 'surf' portion of calamari and prawns was good, but the 'turf' was definitely the clear winner on the plate!
After a very restful night's sleep we headed downstairs to the buffet breakfast. The buffet part was your typical continental style breakfast, croissants, crumpets, muesli, fruit salad, yoghurt and fruit juice, but the wow factor was the hot breakfast made to order. We had a choice between an omelette or a full English breakfast and both decided on the English breakfast. Wow! What a way to start the day!
We had a wonderful room with a view in the Grande Lodge. It felt warm as it had the morning sun streaming through the double doors leading to the balcony. The shower was situated inside the room as opposed to having a separate bathroom which was perfect for us but might be something to consider if you're thinking of booking a room with your golfing buddies.
When you log into the wifi using your voucher, you get sent a list of places to visit in the area which is very useful. So, we headed out for the day to see some of the places suggested.
We decided to explore the much talked about Spice Route and then head over to Babylonstoren. We arrived at the Spice Route at around 10:30 and there were only a handful of people around, but by the time we left at 12:00 there was an endless stream of cars coming up the driveway. I would imagine in summer there are far more people as it's the perfect location to wile a day away.
Our first stop was at the distillery which is set up really well and offers beer tastings but we decided 10:30 was a bit early to begin tastings so headed to the coffee shop instead. Both of us are huge coffee fans and are quite specific about how coffee should and shouldn't be made, and we both agreed that this was one of the best flat whites we've tasted in Cape Town! We also tasted some of their ice cream flavours and will definitely be returning in summer to enjoy those when the weather is a little warmer!
There is plenty to see and taste at the Spice Route and we'd love to go back again, but it was a bit too cold for us to spend any more time there. On leaving we found a small dirt road that leads to Fairview Wine and Cheese Vineyard and Goat Farm and decided that seeing as we were so close we should definitely pop in for a visit.
Fairview has cheese and wine tastings which sounded delicious, but we opted to buy a few different cheeses and some freshly baked German bretzels for lunch later on as we were still very full from breakfast. If you are looking for authentic German bretzels, these are the real deal and are worth trying!
From there we headed to Babylonstoren - there is a R10.00 entry fee per person which gets donated to the Babylonstoren trust for the education of local children.
Babylonstoren is a beautiful space to spend some time having a relaxing walk alone or with loved ones. We had planned on eating lunch here after all the recommendations we had received, but we just weren't hungry yet so we ended up simply walking around and exploring. We'll definitely be bringing our two year old here in future as she would love exploring the little pathways and the stream. Babylonstoren has a 'farm to fork philosophy' which means they like to serve food that is seasonal and which reflects their 'pick, clean and serve' approach, which means that you'll have a good chance of seeing the veggies being harvested as you walk around the gardens.
Our cheese and bretzels were calling to us so we headed back to Boschenmeer and ate lunch on our balcony overlooking the golf course.
After lunch we took our champagne and glasses and went for a walk around the golf course looking for a place to sit and enjoy the view. We found a bench tucked away not far from one of the tees and popped our champagne there (we must apologise to the foursome who had their tee shots ruined because of the unexpected spectators). We sat for ages taking in the view, watching the birds, and watching the sun set behind the trees before heading back to our warm room.
Breakfast the next morning was just as good. Unfortunately we can't comment on the omelette as we were so happy with the English breakfast the day before that we went with that again!
Boschenmeer are considerate with their checkout times, breakfast is served between 7:00 and 10:00 and checkout is at 11:00 so one doesn't feel the need to wake up earlier than usual in order to leave on time. We had breakfast then headed upstairs to pack up, have a last cup of coffee on our balcony and head home.
All in all we had a really great stay. We'd love to visit again to stay in one of the self-catering units, but maybe that would be best done when it's warmer to be able to make full use of the braai and pool!
Thank you to the wonderful staff at Boschenmeer for being so accommodating and welcoming!
