Ever wondered what it felt like to live in a White Mischief world of colonial Africa or stay in a hotel where reigning monarchs and Hollywood celebs have laid their heads? Well, you can live the dream if you visit the Victoria Falls Hotel in Zimbabwe.
The Edwardian-style five-star hotel is the grand old lady of Vic Falls, an essay in understated elegance beside the flashier new hotels. Set in the Victoria Falls National Park, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site, it was built way back in 1904. That’s not long after the end of the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa and around the time the Wright brothers were making history with their flying machines.
Those were heady days when ladies were pale and interesting in heavily-boned corsets and high lace collars, and men sported heavy moustaches and cutaway frock coats over pants that were a splendiferous sixty centimetres wide.
Those were heady days when ladies were pale and interesting in heavily-boned corsets and high lace collars, and men sported heavy moustaches and cutaway frock coats over pants that were a splendiferous sixty centimetres wide.
Something of the elegance of that time is still preserved in the hotel today, with its courtyard gardens, lily ponds and waving palm trees, its numerous lounges stuffed with antiques and squishy sofas perfect for lounging in, its rooms with teak cupboards and four-poster beds with their wrap-around mozzie nets.
Even the old-fashioned red-polished corridors are like time capsules, exuding an unmistakable aroma of Sunbeam polish that older folk will remember well; a welcome change from the usual five-star bling-fest of marble and terracotta tiles.
Of course it’s not all about the past; there are modern touches too where they count. Like satellite TV, safes and air conditioners in the rooms, as well as updated bathrooms filled with Charlotte Rhys body pampering products.
In my next post, I’ll tell you about 10 things to do at the hotel.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
Even the old-fashioned red-polished corridors are like time capsules, exuding an unmistakable aroma of Sunbeam polish that older folk will remember well; a welcome change from the usual five-star bling-fest of marble and terracotta tiles.
Of course it’s not all about the past; there are modern touches too where they count. Like satellite TV, safes and air conditioners in the rooms, as well as updated bathrooms filled with Charlotte Rhys body pampering products.
In my next post, I’ll tell you about 10 things to do at the hotel.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
