Eikestad

Stellenbosch is considered to be one of South Africa’s most beautiful villages. Located at the foot of the mountains in a fertile valley, the scenery couldn’t be more beautiful. The place is named after it’s founder, the Dutchman governor Simon Van Der Stel, and meant “Stel’s bush”. Back in the day, people did not think this had a double meaning (you perv.). Van Der Stel is seen as the founder of Cape Town in name of the VOC and had a major influence on the area. One of those influences was importing oak trees.

South African trees did not grow tall and straight, so they were not ideal to make timber wood off. That is why Simon Van Der Stel started growing European oak trees. Today the city still has the nickname “Eikestad” (oak city). As you can imagine, you can still find a lot of oak trees in the streets.