Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town

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The iconic bathing boxes at Muizenberg

© WESSA Blue Flag

There’s something ‘retro’ about Cape Town’s Muizenberg Beach, an echo of an era when seaside talent shows and parading along the promenade were all the vogue.  No doubt it’s the old-style beach pavilion and those iconic, boldly-coloured Victorian bathing ‘boxes’ or huts which evoke the feeling of a step back in time.

Muizenberg Blue Flag Beach has been the summer holiday destination of hundreds of thousands of South Africans over the years; year after year families have journeyed from all areas of the interior to spend their Decembers on the warm sands of this resort town. Many will recount fond memories of ice-cream sellers with bicycles and bells, fruit vendors dispensing paper cups filled with bright red strawberries and, when the wind came up, sheltering between those ‘boxes’ in the ‘snake pit’, reluctant to leave this wide, 20km long Cape Town beach until they had no choice.

Then, the popularity of this Cape Town beach stemmed from the fact that this was one Mother City beach where swimmers could immerse more than a big toe in the surf.  Positioned on the Indian Ocean, the waters were far more welcoming that the seas of the Atlantic. Time and again surfers will tell that Muizenberg was the place they first took to their boards; the beach’s Surfer’s Corner remains the place to experience a relatively gentle introduction to the sport. It is fitting then that this South African favourite should hold Blue Flag beach status.

The beachfront complex offers recreational facilities too, such as waterslides, a swimming pool and Putt-Putt for the kids. A popular seafront activity is an easy 30-minute walk from Muizenberg to the neighbouring suburb of St James. A little further away from the beach, steep cliffs offer challenging rock climbing. If you’re tired of hanging around the beach, there are fun tourist attractions in the village and a few fun places to stop off for a bite to eat.