Introducing Kigali

Rwanda was once the ‘Land of Eternal Spring’ and its capital Kigali still fits the bill. Sprawled over ridges, hills and valleys, it is a small, attractive city offering superb views over the intensively cultivated and terraced countryside beyond. It was quite badly trashed during the civil war in 1994, but following a long rehabilitation, one gets the sense that Kigali is a city looking ahead to the future, not back to the past.

There aren’t many sights in the city, but the Kigali Memorial Centre, documenting the Rwandan genocide, is a must for all visitors to Rwanda. The city has a reasonable range of hotels and restaurants, and while nightlife is not quite as pumping as it is in Kampala (Uganda) or Nairobi (Kenya), it is worth a whiff at the weekend.