I like these places

Sometimes a place captures a part of your soul and hold it there with connections that span time. Here are a few of my favourite:

Kalk Bay, main road. CAPE TOWN

It's not just the main road, but this lovely stretch has such a soul-liberating feeling about it, especially when everyone else in the city is out and about and you can always grab a coffee or a beer at a local cafe, sit there with your panama hat and basically just imbibe the sea air. 

On a few occasions, I had tried to get the soul of my place in my bloodstream. I was looking for something that arguably wasn't there; but between the mountain and the sea, in the airy feel of the eponymous art gallery, and the musical pop-ups that occasionally came into the area - not to mention the more stately appeal of Polano, it was all very much worth the effort of getting there. 

Neighborgoods Market, Woodstock CAPE TOWN

This place has definitely trapped a fair part of my soul and kept it there. Now although it's fairly pretentious and a scene to be seen, it's got a fair few open-air treasures to keep in mind.

Note that it's set in one of the least pretentious places in the world and that it's brought the area up substantially, despite what you might have seen about the horrors of gentrification. I love this place and I want to go there again and again. The cream of the crop are wandering around and that lifts my spirit. Whether that's pretentious or not, may the Gods be the judge. 


Lemington Spa, Warwickshire

The draw of this place is not immediately evident, well at least not in any conventional sense. Rentals are high and it's not particularly apart from being a very lovely average English town that's above all the mishmash happening all over the country. It's clean, it's got everything you want out of a fine English town, including Georgian architecture wrapping streets upon streets, nd it's also the sort of place you could set a darn good crime thriller, or maybe just as cute romance. It's also sufficiently close to the countryside to allow for some escapism on a train. Preferably not Virgin trains. But those are cross country anyway. Go to Stratford upon avon, or Warwickshire castle if you feel like a short galivant.