What's happening in Cape Town this week?

Spring in Cape Town has a temper. Daytime highs run between 20°C and 24°C, but the south-easter, which Capetonians call the Cape Doctor, blows for two or three days at a stretch and can top 60 km/h, pulling a white tablecloth of cloud over the lip of Table Mountain and shutting the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, sometimes by mid-morning. Make the first windless morning of your week summit day: check the cableway's status at 7am and be in the queue on Tafelberg Road by 8:30am, before the rock warms and the tour buses arrive. On windy days, go indoors. Zeitz MOCAA at the V&A Waterfront and the Iziko National Gallery in the Company's Garden will fill a day, and the Garden's oaks block some of the gusts. Robben Island ferries from the Nelson Mandela Gateway cancel in the same swells, so keep one spare day in your plan for them.

Saturday is market day in Cape Town, and the two worth your morning have little in common. The Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill on Albert Road, Woodstock, runs 9am to 3pm. By 11am the shed is shoulder to shoulder and loud, smelling of wood smoke from the lamb and oyster stalls, so arrive at 9am. The Oranjezicht City Farm Market at Granger Bay, beside the V&A Waterfront, opens at 8am on Saturday and 9am on Sunday: calmer, with salt air off the harbour, crusty sourdough, and Cape Malay koesisters. If you don't know them, koesisters are spiced, coconut-dusted doughnuts, softer than the plaited Afrikaner koeksister. Expect R80 to R150 for a plate, and at R16.63 to the US dollar that comes to about $5 to $9. On rugby weekends, Cape Town Stadium in Green Point fills from the Fan Walk, and Uber waits around the Waterfront can stretch past 20 minutes after the final whistle.

Weekday evenings belong to Bree Street and Kloof Street, both of which fill from around 5pm Tuesday through Saturday. The Thursday crowd on Bree skews toward office workers, arrives earlier, and gets louder than Friday's, and on the first Thursday of each month, galleries along Bree Street and Church Street stay open until about 9pm for First Thursdays, which is worth planning a visit around. Sunday works the other way: by 2pm the shutters come down along Long Street and the crowd migrates to the Sea Point Promenade, where families walk toward Mouille Point holding soft-serve while the Atlantic thuds against the sea wall. Sunset is around 7:20pm this week, and the slopes of Signal Hill fill with picnic blankets from 6pm. After dark, take an Uber rather than walking, even for a few blocks in the CBD. Cape Town scores 5/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), and most of that risk comes after dark.

Pack a swimsuit, but go in knowing what you're getting into. The Atlantic at Clifton and Camps Bay is currently around 12°C to 14°C, cold enough to make your ankles ache within a minute. False Bay at Muizenberg tends to run four or five degrees warmer, and if a proper swim is what you're after this week, that's where you want to be. It sits about 30 minutes by car from the City Bowl, with striped beach huts and gentle beginner waves. Surf schools along Beach Road rent wetsuits and boards and run two-hour lessons for roughly R400 to R600.