Sunny spacious Bulawayo, the country's second largest city, is a pleasure in any season.
Its highveld climate, the broad tree-lined streets wide enough to turn an ox wagon, the attractive mixture of architecture and gracious parks and gardens, all give Bulawayo her special appeal.
Bulawayo is historically very important for its locale was chosen by the great Ndebele king, Lobengula, to commemorate the battle achievements of his people.
Both Lobengula's indaba tree and the many old colonial buildings are still a vibrant part of today's city, and have been carefully preserved.
In the city-centre are two beautiful parks, which cover over 45 hectares. Here one can find a myriad of cool shady places, an aviary, and a small game enclosure, as well as a swimming pool, a playground and a campsite.
Bulawayo also boasts a Museum of Natural History - the largest museum of its kind in the Southern hemisphere - with a collection of 75,000 animais.
More unusual is the Railway Museum, which has an outstanding collection of historic locomotives and rolling stock, attracting visitors and railway enthusiasts from ail over the world.
The National Railways of Zimbabwe still operates a small fleet of romantic passenger locomotives on the route through hundreds of kilometres of bush to Victoria Falls.
Just 40km from the city centre of Bulawayo lies the Matopos National Park, where the ancient Matopo Hills are located. The granite out-crops form a dramatic landscape.
The extraordinary knobbly granite formations are a result of violent geomorphologic actions, which created an eerie panorama so brooding and mysterious that it enchanted Ndebele kings and colonial settlers alike.
Rhodes was so impressed by this area that he requested that 43,200 hectares be turned into National Park and asked to be buried there, at a place know as "Worlds View".
Close to this monument are cave paintings, painted by Bushmen thousands of years ago.
The fenced, western sector of the park is a reserve for small game, known as the Whovi Wild Area, where most animais except elephants and big cats can be seen.
Worth a visit is the Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ) wherein black rhino are kept separate and monitored closely to protect these few that have escaped poachers.
Another interesting place for wildlife enthusiasts is the Chipangali orphanage, where sick or abandoned animais are nursed back to health.
