“Pic of the Week”, January 16, 2015: Victoria Falls Hotel, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe 2011-084 Victoria Falls Hotel

The Victoria Falls Hotel, built in 1904, was the first hotel in Victoria Falls.  Visiting it today takes one back to the days when travel was a grand adventure, and to stay in a lovely  colonial establishment like this was icing on the travel cake.  Luxury, charm, fine food and service — this place had (and still has) it all.  Besides the grand entrance seen above and its inviting verrandah, the halls of the hotel are filled with historic drawings, photographs and paintings of that bygone era.

Alas, we did not stay at this beautiful hotel, although I wish we had (we stayed instead at the disappointing Livingstone hotel in Zambia, but that’s a story for another day).  But we did have …

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“Pic of the Week”, August 16, 2013. Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

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Victoria Falls is one of the Natural Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Spanning 1700 meters (1 mile) between two countries, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the falls represents a 100 m (330 foot) drop of the Zambezi River into its gorge.

The appearance of the waterfall differs greatly from season to season.  During the rainy season, the Zambian side is the preferred place to watch the falls as you really can`t see much then in Zimbabwe (high flow kicks up so much mist you get drenched and obscures the falls — hence the nickname,`The Smoke that Thunders`).  During the dry season, the Zambian side literally dries up, with little more than bare rocks visible, but Zimbabwe …

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Victoria Falls: The Zimbabwe Side

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After our introduction to the Falls in Zambia, we wanted to venture to Zimbabwe to see how the Victoria Falls experience in that country compared. We were visiting during the dry season and, as outlined in my prior blog post, the falls in the Eastern Cataract were all but completely dry, though the gorge was still very dramatic. Our first inclination was to travel via guided tour arranged by the Activities desk of the Royal Livingstone Hotel until we found out how corrupt and unfair their pricing mechanism is, so we decided to go by ourselves. I’m glad we did it this way. We were a little concerned about visiting Zimbabwe by ourselves because …

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