Simon's Town

Simon's Town (Afrikaans: Simonstad), sometimes spelled Simonstown, is a town near Cape Town, South Africa, which is home to the South African Navy. It is located on the shores of False Bay, on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. For more than two centuries it has been an important naval base and harbour (first for the Royal Navy and now the South African Navy). The town is named after Simon van der Stel, an early governor of the Cape Colony.

Topography

The land rises steeply from near the water's edge and the picturesque village is boxed in along the shoreline by the heights above. The small harbour itself is not a particularly good natural harbour and is protected from swells by a breakwater that was built with thousands of huge blocks of sandstone quarried out of the face of the mountain above. Simon's Town is now in effect a suburb of greater Cape Town. The Simon's Town railway station is the terminus of the Southern Line, a railway line that runs south from the central business district of Cape Town. In places the railway line hugs the steep eastern shore of False Bay quite spectacularly and in bad weather waves and foam from some heavy swells will fly up and wet the trains.