South Africa
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Lying at the southern tip of the continent, South Africa is the size of Britain, Germany, France and Italy combined and a unique blend of African culture and European sophistication. The region has one of the highest average number of sunshine hours in the world.

The capital is Pretoria and other major cities include Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. The currency is the SA Rand and visas are not required for visits by EU nationals.

It is a country of amazing variety with beautiful beaches, forests, lake districts, mountains, bushveld, savannah plains, and game parks. The most famous is the Kruger National Park well known for its teeming wildlife and conservation programmes. Sabi Sands Game Reserve, Timbavati, Thornybush, Klaserie and Manyeleti also offer game viewing opportunities.

Other reserves for animal and bird-life and also lying in malaria-free zones are and Shamwari and the Welgevonden Private Game Reserve near the Waterburg. Two hours drive from Johannesburg is the Pilanesburg Game Reserve with its137,000 acres of bush this reserve is adjacent to Sun City, a fantasy destination built around the bowl of an extinct volcano where cabarets, casinos and a range of sporting activities on land and water are available.

Durban has forest and marine reserve, quiet resorts and beautiful beaches that offer opportunities for snorkelling and scuba diving. In February, leatherback and loggerhead turtles come ashore to lay their eggs.

The interior of KwaZulu-Natal has a mix of parks and reserves with Phinda the best known. West of Durban lies the The Drakensberg mountains, "Mountains of the Dragon" to the Zulu people, providing excellent climbing and hiking opportunities with peaks of over 3300m, sometimes soaring vertically upwards from valley floors to rugged tops and plateau creating unique, remote, and spectacular scenery.

The Garden Route is an area of outstanding natural beauty, running from the uncrowded beaches of Wilderness and Busffels Bay to the Little Karoo with its ostrich farms. Other sights in this area are the Tsitsikamma Forest, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay and the Elephant Park at Addo. Hermanus offers whale watching; between July and November the southern right whales comes into the bays around Hermanus to mate and calve and may be easily viewed from the cliffs of the town where a "whale caller" announces sightings.

If you visit only one place in South Africa, make it Cape Town, perhaps the most instantly recognisable citiy in the world, and according to Sir Francis Drake in 1580 "The most stately thing, the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth".

Places not to be missed are the cableway to the top of Table Mountain (you can also walk with a guide if fit!), the Bo Kaap area of the city, the Victoria and Albert waterfront, Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, a trip to the Cape of Good Hope where the cold Atlantic meets the warmer Indian ocean, and round the Cape to Simonstown to see the jackass penguins.

A visit to the wine regions of Stellenbosch, Paarl, Constantia and Franschoek also provides an interesting excursion.