Welcome to Nelson Mandela Bay!

Introduction:
We have been invited by CrazyCow of Durban to participate in the city daily photo forum. Since we are passionate about Port Elizabeth, and already love sharing photos of the city on our personal blogs, it will be a delight to show others around the world what a cool place it is!
To set the scene, PE (as it is affectionately called) is a major port in Nelson Mandela Bay, on the Southern coast of South Africa, at about 33.5 degrees south.

The bay was known as Algoa Bay since the town was established here in the early 1800s, but the name was recently changed to honour our first President since true democracy. The surrounding area is called the Nelson Mandela Metropole, and encompasses the towns of Port Elizabeth, Despatch and Uitenhage. As they are essentially all one city, we will cover the entire Metropole in this blog, although our main focus will be on Port Elizabeth.

And to start us off:
Here is a view of the bay, looking across to the north, from the cliffs at the side of Albany Road, which was built in one of the river gorges (we call them kloofs) which run from the hill to the sea.

This is a view across the North End area of town, mostly commercial and industrial. The domed roof in the bottom right hand corner is the old fire station, which we will feature in more detail soon.