Table Mountain
— the cloud that lays itself across the summit.
Not only on a wall.
“The flat sandstone summit above Cape Town, rising 1,086 metres from the bowl of the city to a plateau three kilometres long. When the southeaster blows, a single cloud called the tablecloth pours over the rim and dissolves before it reaches the slopes. The mountain belongs to its own national park, holds more plant species than the British Isles, and is reached by a five-minute cableway running since 1929.
Table Mountain, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Table Mountain forms the northern end of a sandstone ridge running down the Cape Peninsula above Cape Town, South Africa. The summit plateau sits 1,086 metres above sea level, runs nearly three kilometres east to west, and is flanked by Devil's Peak, Lion's Head, and Signal Hill. It anchors Table Mountain National Park, which extends south down the peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. The mountain was named one of the New7Wonders of Nature in 2012, alongside the Amazon and Halong Bay.
The plateau and slopes hold over 2,200 plant species, more than the entire British Isles, in a vegetation type called fynbos that grows almost nowhere else on Earth. Roughly 70 percent of the Cape Floral Kingdom's species are endemic, and the mountain alone protects hundreds found nowhere else. The dassie, a small rodent-like mammal, is the most visible resident; black eagles nest on the cliffs. UNESCO inscribed the Cape Floral Region as a World Heritage Site in 2004 in recognition of this diversity.
The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway has run since 1929, carrying visitors from Tafelberg Road at 363 metres to the upper station at 1,067 metres in about five minutes. The current rotating cabins were installed in 1997 and carry 65 passengers each. The cableway closes in high wind, which is frequent in summer; the same southeaster brings the tablecloth cloud that drapes the summit. Walkers can take Platteklip Gorge, the most direct path up, in roughly two to three hours from the lower station.