Cape Town to Pretoria
Cape Town → Pretoria
The Blue Train's Cape Town to Pretoria journey is one of the world's great rail experiences — a 1,600-kilometre, two-night passage through the full spectrum of South Africa's landscapes. From the vine-draped valleys of the Cape Winelands to the immense silence of the Great Karoo and on to the golden Highveld, this northbound route is a slow, luxurious revelation of a continent in motion.
Aboard the Blue Train, six decades of heritage meet contemporary five-star service. Guests travel in private suites finished in marble and hardwood, dine on Karoo lamb and Knysna oysters paired with award-winning South African wines, and step briefly onto the platform at two historic off-train excursion points: the time-warped Victorian village of Matjiesfontein and the diamond-rush city of Kimberley. Every detail — meals, beverages, butler service, and excursions — is included.
Departing Cape Town at noon and arriving in Pretoria on the evening of day three, the Blue Train offers a pace the modern world rarely allows: 54 hours to watch South Africa unfold beyond floor-to-ceiling windows, glass in hand, with nothing more pressing than which table seating to choose for dinner.
- ✦Dramatic Hex River Mountain Pass shortly after Cape Town departure
- ✦Victorian time-warp excursion to Matjiesfontein with vintage double-decker bus
- ✦Crossing the vast Great Karoo in atmospheric morning light
- ✦Guided tour of Kimberley's Big Hole — world's largest hand-excavated crater
- ✦Commemorative engraved Blue Train sherry glass at Kimberley
- ✦All-inclusive fine dining on Karoo lamb, ostrich, and Knysna oysters with South African wines
- ✦Private marble-finished suites with 24-hour butler service throughout
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Cape Town & Matjiesfontein
Registration opens at the Blue Train Lounge at 11:30, where guests are welcomed with canapés and refreshments. At 12:00 the train departs Cape Town's grand Victorian station, immediately threading through the Cape Winelands — the fertile valleys of Stellenbosch and Paarl visible in the distance, vineyards giving way to fynbos-covered mountain slopes. Lunch is served in two seatings as the train climbs into the Hex River Mountains, one of the most dramatic sections of the route, before descending into the fringes of the Karoo. In the late afternoon the train makes a brief stop at Matjiesfontein, a National Heritage Site unlike any other: a perfectly preserved Victorian village conjured from the Karoo scrubland by Scottish entrepreneur James Douglas Logan in the 1880s. Guests disembark and board a vintage London double-decker bus for a short tour of the village, visiting the landmark Lord Milner Hotel (built 1899) with its original 19th-century London lampposts, colonial verandas, and Anglo-Boer War connections. Sherry is served on arrival. The excursion lasts approximately 30–40 minutes before the train resumes its journey northeast. Dinner is served in two formal seatings in the dining car, and the evening winds down in the Club Car with cognacs and cigars as the Karoo darkness stretches to every horizon.
Day 2 — The Great Karoo & Kimberley
Breakfast is served between 07:00 and 10:00 as the Blue Train crosses the heart of the Great Karoo — a vast semi-arid plateau of extraordinary stillness. Pale ochre plains, rocky koppies, and the occasional windmill drift past the panoramic windows; the Karoo's scale and silence are among the most memorable things about this journey. After lunch, the train arrives at Kimberley Station in the afternoon (approximately 15:00), the historic capital of South Africa's diamond fields. A bus transfer takes guests to the Open Mine Museum — one of South Africa's finest open-air museums — for a guided tour of this evocative site. The centrepiece is the legendary Big Hole, the world's largest hand-excavated crater: 215 metres deep and 463 metres wide, it was dug entirely by pick and shovel between 1871 and 1914 in the frantic pursuit of diamonds. Guests view the Big Hole from an enclosed ramp at its very edge and explore historical exhibits on the diamond rush, Cecil John Rhodes, and the Siege of Kimberley during the Anglo-Boer War. On returning to the station, each guest receives a commemorative sherry glass engraved with the Blue Train logo. Aperitifs and a formal dinner follow as the train departs at approximately 18:30, heading north across the Highveld toward Pretoria.
Day 3 — Arrival in Pretoria
Breakfast is served through the morning as the Blue Train traverses the Highveld's wide, golden grasslands — the economic heartland of South Africa, dotted with mining headgear and the occasional jacaranda-lined town. Lunch is available before the train makes its final approach into Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital. The train arrives at Pretoria Station at 18:00, concluding the journey. Guests disembark into a city famed for its jacaranda trees — over 70,000 of them — which turn the streets purple every October and November.
Destinations & Highlights
Cape Town — The Mother City
Cape Town is the departure point and one of the world's most celebrated cities. Framed by the flat-topped grandeur of Table Mountain, the city sits at the junction of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Cape Winelands — Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, and Paarl — lie just to the east, and it is through these fertile valleys that the Blue Train first travels, offering guests a moving portrait of South Africa's wine country before the landscape opens to something altogether wilder.
Matjiesfontein — A Victorian Time Warp
Matjiesfontein (pronounced Mikki-sfontein) is one of South Africa's most extraordinary historical curiosities: an entire Victorian village frozen in the 1880s, declared a National Heritage Site. James Douglas Logan built it as a health resort in the semi-arid Karoo, and it attracted luminaries including Cecil John Rhodes, Rudyard Kipling, and writer Olive Schreiner. The Lord Milner Hotel, its 19th-century London lampposts, its cobbled streets and colonial architecture create an uncanny atmosphere of colonial time-travel. During the Anglo-Boer War the hotel served as a military field hospital. The village has been painstakingly preserved since 1975 and today receives guests almost exclusively from the Blue Train.
The Great Karoo — South Africa's Ancient Interior
The Karoo is not a single place but a vast geological and cultural region covering roughly a third of South Africa. Its semi-arid plains, dramatic rock formations, and enormous skies have been inhabited for tens of thousands of years and inspired some of South Africa's greatest literature. Crossing the Karoo by train — at a leisurely pace, with a glass of South African wine — is among the most contemplative travel experiences the continent offers. The Blue Train traverses hundreds of kilometres of this ancient landscape through the night and into the morning of day two.
Kimberley — The Diamond City
Kimberley was born in 1871 when diamonds were discovered in the red earth of what was then Griqualand West, triggering one of history's most dramatic mineral rushes. Within years a city had materialised from nothing, and by 1888 Cecil John Rhodes had consolidated the mines into De Beers Consolidated Mines. The Big Hole — 215 metres deep, 463 metres wide — is the tangible result of 43 years of hand-digging by some 50,000 miners. Kimberley was also the site of one of the Anglo-Boer War's most famous sieges (1899–1900), when Boer forces besieged the city for 124 days. The Open Mine Museum tells both stories with remarkable clarity and authenticity.
Pretoria — The Jacaranda City
Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital, is a city of monuments and wide avenues. The Union Buildings — designed by Herbert Baker and completed in 1913 — crown a hilltop overlooking the city and served as the site of Nelson Mandela's presidential inauguration in 1994. Church Square, Voortrekker Monument, and the Ditsong Museums of Natural History and Cultural History are among the city's highlights. Pretoria is most famously associated with its 70,000 jacaranda trees, which bloom in purple-blue profusion every October and November, earning it the nickname the Jacaranda City.