Sandwiched between the CBD and residential Green Point, De Waterkant is a transitional zone with a character and a charm all of its own.

Its little cobbled streets, pavement cafes and quaint terraced houses give it a very Continental feel, rather like parts of Florence or Lisbon. And, like Paddington in Sydney, it has its own dynamic.

De Waterkant is almost self-contained, like a mini-city inside a city, and yet it is so close to the CBD that you can easily walk to work there. Or Uber to a world-class Design Indaba. An international jazz festival. An African contemporary dance class. Or an operatic opening night.

It’s also just a few minutes stroll from Cape Town’s biggest anchor, the V&A Waterfront, with its myriad shiny shops, bright boats, rowdy pubs and delicate dining, its new Silo and Dock Road precincts, new Virgin Active and, coming soon, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.

Just a quick MyCiTi down Somerset Road will take you past the familiar shape of the Cape Town Stadium, to the beautiful rolling hectares of the Green Point Urban Park and the Metropolitan Golf Club, to the Mouille Point and Sea Point Promenades, to the beaches and surf breaks and yacht clubs and kayak clubs of  the glistening, peaceful restlessness of the Atlantic Ocean.

Just a quick hike or brisk mountain bike will raise you up onto Signal Hill and then Lion’s Head, lifting you out of  the City Bowl and opening up the incredible vistas and folds and flanks and mountainous bones of the Fairest Cape.

Or send you spiraling down in ecstatic descent beneath the bright furl of a hang-glider’s wing to the lawns of Three Anchor Bay.