Experience the best of Harare

Harare stands on the Mashonaland plateau at about 1,500 metres, which gives it a mild climate. It was founded in 1890 as Fort Salisbury by a column of settlers and renamed Harare after independence, in 1982. Wide avenues are lined with jacaranda trees, which turn parts of the city purple in October. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe shows contemporary work and Shona stone sculpture, the Mbare Musika market is a large, crowded trading place, and Harare Gardens offers green space in the centre.

Chapungu Sculpture Park displays Shona stone sculpture outdoors, and the Epworth Balancing Rocks, granite boulders perched one on another, stand on the city's outskirts. Lake Chivero, about 30 kilometres to the south-west, has a game park and birdlife, Domboshawa, a granite dome with rock paintings, lies to the north-east, and the Ewanrigg Botanical Garden holds a collection of aloes. The ruins of Great Zimbabwe lie about 300 kilometres south.

Sadza, a stiff maize porridge, is eaten with relishes of stew, greens and beans, and kapenta, small dried fish from Lake Kariba, is a favourite. Barbecues, braais, are a weekend habit. The rains fall from November to March, and the dry season brings clear skies and cool nights between May and August.