Last week a group of FIFA inspectors spent a few days in Cape Town as part of a visit to South Africa to check on the country's suitability to host the 2010 football World Cup.
They ran the rule over the city's Newlands and Athlone stadiums, met government delegations and had a few plush dinners.
Like most tourists they took in a visit to Robben Island, where they received a guided tour of the prison from an ex-political prisoner. In the case of Jan Peeters and the men from FIFA, however, it was the island's most famous former inmate, Nelson Mandela, who turned up unannounced to be their guide.
South Africa is sports mad, but observing the occasionally hysterical coverage which the FIFA visit received in the local media you'd be forgiven for thinking that all the country's woes will evaporate should they get the nod from football's governing body to host the World Cup.
Some would have been happier had the entire country being sanitised before the visit to ensure a favourable outcome.
In Cape Town there was much wailing about the bad image presented by striking workers at the airport and at the Shoprite supermarket.
What will visitors - and particularly the FIFA VIPs - to our beautiful city think of such malcontents, seemed to be the subtext behind many calls to Cape Town radio shows.
Most visitors probably looked beyond the rather innocuous picket lines and gazed in awe at Table Mountain, took in the blue summer skies and wondered if they could get in a spot of surfing or sunbathing.
Both backpackers hanging out in the boho cafes on Long Street, and more well-heeled tourists checking into hotels in the revamped Waterfront area would have quickly realised that the rand's current exchange rate makes Cape Town a good value destination.
Some would have glanced at the property advertisements and worked out that exceptionally well-appointed three-bedroom apartments with wonderful sea views in the comfortable Hout Bay and Sandy Bay suburbs were on the market for 1.8 million rand (€225,000).
But if they had looked out the other window of their taxi on the journey from the airport they would have seen Cape Flats, which houses shanty towns.
Few of these buildings would be considered desirable residences by property-mad Europeans. Here, line after line of bleak, makeshift, miserable shacks are home to those who haven't benefited from the country's democratic dividend.
The continued existence of Cape Flats goes some way to explaining the widespread apathy and disenchantment with both politics and the ANC government, and why some 9.5 million people still hadn't registered to vote in next year's elections prior to this month's voter-registration drive.
Cape Town is a place where first world and third worlds collide. Thanks to the city's incredible location and scenic surroundings, it is top of many travellers' wish-list of ideal destinations. Tourism is booming, with an infrastructure emerging to service that boom.
Official figures show that 6.4 million people visited the country last year, an increase of 20 per cent on the previous year, and South African authorities predict those figures will grow over the next decade.
For the most part, however, tourists stick to the so-called safe side of Cape Town, and armed security guards ensure street kids and other undesirables are kept well away from these wealthy visitors in their hotels, clubs and bars. While the city is not as violent as Johannesburg, tales of petty crime and carjacking youths are enough to put most off from venturing further afield.
But it must be remembered that this is still a young democracy. The ongoing, rather bizarre Boeremag trial of those accused of plotting a coup in 2001 to overthrow the government and expel all non-whites from the country shows that the new South Africa is not to every inhabitant's liking.
Yet there are some valiant efforts being made to undo the worst economic and social effects of apartheid. One hugely symbolic project is the redevelopment of District Six. This area near the centre of Cape Town was once a multi-racial community of some 60,000 people until PW Botha's regime forced non-whites to leave and then sent in the bulldozers to demolish the buildings.
Three decades later, the South African government have begun an ambitious rebuilding and resettlement scheme, and it's hoped that the community spirit which was once there can be rekindled. This will take time, but such time is something which many Capetonians have in abundance.