Goodbye Johannesburg, hello Cape Town – South Africa’s most visited city, home of the country’s Parliament and major governmental institutions, and destination for up to 10,000 England supporters in the next two days.

First impressions? It’s a fair bit different to the capital. Whereas Johannesburg is a sprawling metropolis that creeps for miles in any direction, Cape Town’s geography has restricted its spread.

On one side, it is framed by the Atlantic Ocean; on the other, Table Mountain emerges from nowhere like a giant rock that has been accidentally dropped from the sky.

The city centre lies in between and can be no more than 2km squared. As a result, it immediately feels more negotiable and homely than Johannesburg. It also feels less African and much more European, a legacy no doubt of its rich and occasionally troubled history.

It was briefly a stopping point for 16th century Portuguese mariners but its real rise to prominence came in the following century when it became a bridging point for the Dutch East India Company between Europe and the Far East.

The Dutch established a settlement where modern-day Cape Town lies, invited German and French religious refugees to join them and by 1750, more than 1,000 houses had been built.

This troubled the British, who were concerned at Napoleonic expansionism, and in 1795 they grabbed Cape Town to help secure their own trading routes with the East. The city remained in British hands until it became the political centre of the newly federated South Africa in 1910.

As a result, it contains an intriguing mishmash of architectural and cultural styles. One of the first things that was pointed out to me as I took a taxi ride from the airport was the ‘Bo-Kaap’, a residential area containing a host of brightly-coloured Dutch terraces, and I have also seen rows of grand Georgian houses that would not look out of place in York or Bath.

They look somewhat incongruous next to Cape Town’s shiny new business district, with its glass skyscrapers stretching up to the sky, but the juxtaposition neatly encapsulates the way in which the whole of South Africa seems to be making a decent fist of blending the old with the new.

It doesn’t get much more new than the gleaming Cape Town Stadium, which was built from scratch ahead of the World Cup finals and which will be the venue for England’s game with Algeria tomorrow night.

The stadium dominates the Waterfront area of Cape Town and is visible for miles around. Just beyond it, and still very much in view, is Robben Island, the notorious prison complex in which Nelson Mandela was held captive for more than two decades.

The island is accessible via a ferry from the mainland and, workload permitting, we’ll be discussing it further in the next few days.

REWIND back a few days and I was telling you the winter climate here in South Africa was all very pleasant. Times have changed.

On Tuesday night, as I watched Brazil beat North Korea, I was wearing a shirt, a jumper, a coat and a scarf, yet I was still shivering by the time I returned to the media centre from my seat. Think a Tuesday night in February at Valley Parade and you’ll know what I mean.

As I drove back to my hotel, the thermometer in my car read minus one degree. It felt even colder than that.

Cape Town is almost 1,000 miles south of Jo’Burg and while it is located at sea level rather than altitude, it is every bit as cold.

Indeed, one of the first things I watched in my hotel room upon arriving was a weather report forecasting a 50 per cent chance of snow during the game tomorrow night. I’m starting to think I could probably have left my shorts at home.

SWITCHING the TV on wasn’t the first job I did after checking in though. Oh no. As any journalist will tell you, there’s always a more important first task than that.

Just as Indiana Jones had his Holy Grail and Captain Cook spent most of his life looking for new islands in the South Pacific, so journalists are embroiled in a never-ending quest for Wifi.

Most people entering a hotel room would be interested in the view, the bathroom or the bed. Not me. “Does it have Wireless internet access?” “Yes.” “Then it’ll do.”

It’s fairly pathetic that something so slight can result in so much pleasure, but it’s hard to explain how much of a nightmare intermittent internet access can be when you’re trying to file copy for the paper and keep on top of Twitter, our Iphone App and various other technological delights.

Still, here I am at the very tip of South Africa, surfing the world wide web without a care.