When you say the word "Grahamstown", what springs to mind? Most people would answer the National Arts Festival. For 10 days in July, this Eastern Cape town throbs with activity as musicians, actors and art lovers flock to it.
The air buzzes with excitement at markets, in theatres, in pubs and in galleries. There are the high-brow mainstream events, and the often equally good (although you're never quite sure) fringe performances. But as thrilling as the festival is, this is perhaps not the best time to experience Grahamstown.
For an authentic experience, try going there in the December/January break, when the schools and Rhodes University are closed. With no students, you soon realise who the real locals are. That's a good time to experience the place's true flavour.
Often referred to as the "city of saints" because of its high number of churches (there are more than 40), this town - I can't bring myself to call it a city because it really is a dorp - has a lot to offer the visitor. Grahamstown is right in the heart of Frontier country.
You can witness the evidence of the 1820 settlers in its exceptionally wide streets (for allowing ox wagons to do U-turns, of course) and in the Victorian architecture. The cathedral dominates the skyline at one end of High Street, as does the Drostdy Arch at the other.
Let me be honest from the start: I'm an ex-Rhodent (the rather unfortunate term used to describe a Rhodes student), so when friends said they were getting married in nearby Salem, I leapt at the opportunity of spending time at my alma mater. (My husband Gavin, a UCT graduate, was not as enthusiastic, but nevertheless assented to the idea.)
We stayed in self-catering accommodation in Suffield House, which the proprietor Leela Pienaar said was originally part of Henry Somerset's estate.
We stayed in the coach room which the horses once called home and enjoyed the upstairs loft bedroom (complete with water bottles for chilly winter nights) and the gracious garden and pool. To stay there will cost you R190 per person per night (it's R30 more if you want to order breakfast).
The next morning we hit High Street in search of brunch. Eager to walk down Memory Lane, I chose Madhatter's, which is where we sometimes used to have informal French conversation tutorials over a mug of coffee.
It was a Saturday morning, but there was not a student in sight, just locals. We were the youngest customers there by at least a decade.
The food was just as good as I remembered, the d�cor hadn't changed a jot (think Alice In Wonderland, and you'll get the picture) and we were even paid a surprise visit by a parrot who greeted people and sang.
For dessert, we headed to Dulc�s, which was an institution in my student days. There is only one flavour of icecream worth eating - at least that was the consensus among my friends - and that was fudge choc-chip, which is what we ended up having. I'm sure it's about 50% condensed milk, but it's wonderful stuff anyway.
Worth checking out (although we didn't this time) is the Observatory Museum's camera obscura - said to be one of only two surviving from the Victorian era (the other is in Bath). It gives you a bird's eye view of your surroundings. It was one of the first things I did during my orientation week tour of Grahamstown (I think my parents accompanied me) - something we scoffed at as second-year students.
We popped by the Old Gaol - now a backpackers. It seems fairly above board, but the idea of spending a night in a prison cell really doesn't appeal to me, even if there is a decent bed and fresh linen.
I performed here as a drama student in an avant-garde play during the National Arts Festival which my family often tease me about. Suffice to say that it wasn't a great work of theatre.
Indeed, it was strange driving around this place - everything seemed both familiar and different. The Pepper Grove shopping complex in African Street didn't exist when I was there. It's modern, with a huge Pick 'n Pay, some speciality stores and a cinema.
The notion of watching recent movie releases in an air-conditioned room would have seemed like utter luxury to us. We watched films that the rest of the country had seen three months previously.
And we sat in an old converted theatre hall (either the Odeon or His Majesty's) where you had to take your duvets to keep warm in winter and brace yourself for rats occasionally running over your feet.
Who could forget Sunny Six-fingers? He was the man who owned His Majesty's, and earned his nickname because of an extra pinkie he had on his one hand. But 21st-century Rhodents wouldn't know what I'm talking about.
I did meet one student during our weekend there. She was studying journalism and was interested to hear that I was working in media. When did I finish studying, she wanted to know. "1997," I said. Ten years ago, I thought. Amazing.
As a professional, I still sometimes feel like a novice. But when I walk around Grahamstown, the memories of my student years come flooding back to me, and I'm reminded that I have moved on since then - and so, in many ways, has this town.
- For more information, visit www.grahamstown.co.za