Covet: Picnic in the Sky

Wow, we had the most awesome day out this past Sunday!
I came across the mainstreetwalks website a while ago and we decided to do the Picnic in the Sky tour this past weekend.
Main Street Walks are all about 'rediscovering the city'....

What an awesome, awesome day out!

Tickets cost R 120 per person (you can book online on their website). You meet at 11am at the Chalkboard Cafe on Fox Street where you pick up your picnic basket. This includes a blanket, cutlery, crockery and glasses.

Then you walk down the road to Arts on Main where you get just over half an hour to scour the Market on Main.

There are loads of goodies for you to stock up your picnic baskets with (just remember to take cash with you as most don't have card machines).

We stocked up on spicy chourico, crispy bread, creamy blue cheese as well as some chinese stir fry noodles, macaroons and gorgeous red velvet cupcakes!

Sipping on ice cold Mojito's, we waited for our taxi to take us to the Carlton Centre.

We had an awesome guide who accompanied us on our trip.

Once at the Carlton, we took the lift up to the 50th floor, where the view of Jo'burg was breathtaking!

Our guide walked us around the entire floor, explaining the history of Jo'burg through the buildings and locations below.

You are able to see all the way to the East, West, South and North and I was amazed at the realisation that Jo'burg city really is the at the heart of everything.

After our tour, the little restaurant up there set up a table for us overlooking the city and we proceeded to gorge ourselves!

You can buy drinks from the restaurant itself or you can bring your own wine. We actually bought a delicious bottle at the market itself.

After our lunch, at abut 2pm, we were dropped back off at Arts on Main.

We decided to explore upstairs, above the market. They have a small exhibition area where you can browse through vintage clothing, local furniture designers, jewellery designers, photographers, art galleries etc.

After that we enjoyed a locally brewed beer on the roof top of Canteen (the restaurant at Arts on Main). It was really festive up there with everyone dancing to some really funky salsa music.

Further up the road is Main Street Life. This all forms part of the Maboneng Precinct and is the result of transforming 1970's industrial buildings into art/design/student hubs.

There are commercial offices, exhibition space and studios to rent, student accomodation and the 12 Decades Art Hotel.

At the bottom are lots of funky restaurants, poetry halls, the bioscope, coffee cafes and boutique clothing shops.

A really sweet lady took us to view one of the apartments for sale/to rent in Main Street Life as well as in Revolution House across the road.

Small but super funky!

At Main Street life each floor is dedicated to a specific discipline eg. photography, fashion, design etc. and they try to rent these out specifically to people involved in these industries.

They also have really awesome rooftop parties on Sundays...