Located at Rwanda’s geographical heart, the rapidly growing city of Kigali is not only the national capital, but also the country’s most important business centre and main port of entry. Serviced by an efficient international airport and connected to neighbouring Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi by surfaced roads, Kigali City boasts a range of hotels catering to all tastes and budgets, and an assortment of fine restaurants whose menus reflect the country’s historical links with Belgium - while also embracing numerous other international cuisines.

Despite such concessions to modernity, Kigali City retains the feel of a garden city, with a satisfyingly organic shape dictated by the verdant slopes over which it sprawls. The compact, low-rise city centre surrounds a busy, colourful market, and is studded with souvenir stalls displaying a wide range of lovingly executed local crafts. The atmospheric Muslim quarter abutting the city centre is well worth a visit, and one can also explore the network of leafy avenues that wind out of the town centre into the surrounding residential suburbs.

Among the safest and friendliest of African capitals, Kigali City is blessed with a moderate high altitude climate that belies its tropical location, and is conveniently located within three hours’ drive of the main tourist sites. The Rwandan capital provides both a comfortable and welcoming introduction to this land of a thousand hills and an ideal springboard from which to explore this magical country.

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Butare (HUYE now ) was the largest and most important city in Rwanda prior to 1965, when it lost out to the more centrally located Kigali, 135km to its north, as the capital of independent Rwanda. Today the site of several academic institutions, including the country's largest university,Huye ( Butare) is still regarded to be the intellectual and cultural pulse of Rwanda. It is also an attractively compact and sedate town of shady avenues emanating from a main street lined with comfortable small hotels and breezy terrace restaurants.

The most prominent tourist attraction in Huye (Butare) is the superb National Museum, which houses perhaps the finest ethnographic collection in East Africa. Absorbing displays of traditional artifacts are illuminated by a fascinating selection of turn-of-the-century monochrome photographs, providing insight not only into pre-colonial lifestyles, but also into the subsequent development of Rwanda as a modern African state.

The cultural significance of the Huye area is further underlined by a visit to nearby Nyabisindu, formerly known as Nyanza, the traditional seat of Rwanda’s feudal monarchy. The impressive Royal Palace at Nyanza, an enormous domed construction made entirely with traditional materials, has been painstakingly restored to its 19th century state and is now maintained as a museum.

Inside the Royal Palace

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