Cape Town named one of top thr

Cape Town named one of top three world cities to visit in 2014

Lonely Planet picks Cape Town as third best international city to visit for its newly acquired status as World Design Capital 2014.

Cape Town named one of top thr

CAPE TOWN 2010Cape Town is one of the three best cities in the world to visit, according to travel publisher Lonely Planet.

The list, published in Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2014 guide released this week, is headed by Paris and Trinidad. Cape Town, in third position, is ahead of other global centres such as Zurich, Shanghai, Chicago and Auckland.

Cape Town was chosen for its newly acquired status as the world’s design capital: “There’s never a bad time to visit Cape Town,” Lonely Planet declares. “In recent years the city has received a deluge of accolades paying homage to its undeniable natural beauty. This year the city is destined to get even prettier as it takes on the title of World Design Capital for 12 months.”

The guide goes on to say, “Expect sculpture-lined green spaces, sustainable projects, and further regeneration of former industrial districts such as Woodstock and The Fringe, now the stamping ground of trendy shoppers and gourmands.”

But Lonely Planet acknowledges that the work of the design team goes beyond making things look pretty: “The main goal of the design team, though, is to bridge the gap between Cape Town’s disparate population, so venture on a tour out of town to see how innovation is turning things around in the disadvantaged townships, then explore suburban sights on the swanky bus system that’s finally making Cape Town feasible on public transport.”

Perennial favourite Paris is certainly not a new destination, however Lonely Planet puts it first for its ‘urban renaissance’ projects. “Paris is being reborn,” says the guide. New developments include walkways and cycleways along 1.5km of former expressway on the Seine’s Right Bank and Left Bank’s new a 2.5km-long car-free zone along the Left Bank in a push to reduce the cars clogging one of Europe’s most congested cities, particularly its Unesco World Heritage—listed riverbanks. A gold ‘flying carpet’ ceiling in the Louvre’s new Islamic art galleries and the renovated Musée Picasso now make the “world’s most beautiful city even more beautiful.”

The book also lists the top countries to visit – Brazil is number one, with Malawi the only African country, coming in at No 5. Malawi, described as home of “the Big Five and beach life without the crowds”, was also commended to tourists for high-visibility snorkelling in Lake Malawi, hiking “over hazy peaks in an otherworldly moonscape” at Mount Mulanje and the “haunting wilderness of grasslands and whaleback hills” of the Viphya Plateau.

The Cuban city of Trinidad (not to be confused with Trinidad and Tobago), coming in second, is described as a ‘sherbet-tinged, time-trapped Unesco World Heritage Site’.

Lonely Planet’s Top 10 cities to visit in 2014

  1. Paris, France
  2. Trinidad, Cuba
  3. Cape Town, South Africa
  4. Riga, Latvia
  5. Zurich, Switzerland
  6. Shanghai, China
  7. Vancouver, Canada
  8. Chicago, USA
  9. Adelaide, Australia
  10. Auckland, New Zealand

Lonely Planet’s Top 10 countires to visit in 2014

  1. Brazil
  2. Antarctica
  3. Scotland
  4. Sweden
  5. Malawi
  6. Mexico
  7. Seychelles
  8. Belgium
  9. Macedonia
  10. Malaysia

Do you think Cape Town deserves its spot in this list? What do you think of these lists? Comment below.

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