The Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa was something of a well kept secret...

The Twelve Apostles Hotel rests grandly above a surging Atlantic Ocean on a stretch of pristine nature reserve very close to the centre of Cape Town. It is protected at its rear by the towering Twelve Apostles mountain peaks. If ''location, location, location,'' matters as much as real estate agents insist, then the Twelve Apostles Hotel takes top honours.

On the site of an old Cape Dutch homestead, a hotel was controversially developed less than ten years ago. It was contentious because this stretch of Cape Town's Atlantic seaboard is part of a protected nature reserve and was quite empty of other human habitation. The first developer couldn't complete the building and subsequent owners never quite found its full potential. The Twelve Apostles Hotel & Spa hotel has now been reinvented as the one of Cape Town's most attractively positioned 5-Star establishments.

The Twelve Apostles Hotel & Spa seems to have come of age to provide one of the most pleasant venues in Cape Town for accommodation, drinking, dining and pampering. The Twelve Apostles is only 10 minutes drive from the city, yet completely surrounded by nature, with an elevated position above the only road leading along the Atlantic coast, just south of Cape Town city. This location allows access easy to Cape Town, its beaches, and the V&A Waterfront, and there is a complimentary hotel courtesy bus to run you around.

The Twelve Apostles Hotel has little nooks and courtyards with rock pools, fynbos gardens and sun loungers around swimming pools. Overlooking the ocean are large Atlantic-view terraces for al fresco dining and nightly sunsets over the water. Endless sea views at such close proximity doesn't get much better than this.