What do the Archduke and Duchess of Austria, actress Alfre Woodard, actor Danny Glover, billionaire businessman Richard Branson and CNN news icon Christiane Amanpour have in common?
Well, besides being amongst the list of other discerning people with amazing taste in their choice of Zimbabwe as a tourist destination, they share an amazing hotel choice!
And their hotel of choice probably proudly wraps u everything that we have to celebrate about being Zimbabwe, seeing as it is that is share the same name as our beautiful country Zimbabwe.
Loosely translated, Imba Matombo Hotel’s name means house of stone; much like the name Zimbabwe, which means a large house of stone. So maybe it’s the size that only is different.
The Imba Matombo experience is as majestic as a large house of stone, but the intimacy of a small hotel establishment is what sets it apart from all the other large bustling hotel establishments.
How often do you get the duty manager himself being at hand to check you in with a smile that explodes the moment you see him?
Howard, the man on duty in the evenings has something about the look in his eyes that seems to suggest that you have met a million times before.
With a warmth that feels like home, you will be forgiven for thinking you will have left the establishment just that morning and are returning home for the evening.
“It’s our hallmark. We want the intimate warmth that comes with a small property like us to be shared by our guests. We are small enough to be close enough to them when they are here yet far enough to afford them their space and privacy,” explained the General Manager Happias Mabhena when he later talked about the hotel’s operations.
In fact, because of its fifteen-room and thirty people full occupancy capacity, it is regarded and trades of course as a lodge. And what a glorious one it is.
Perched like an intended secret in the splendid Glen Lorne hills, the lodge cascades down the side of the hill with a sophistication that is a tortilla of Victorian and Elizabethan influences, which appeal to the discerning visitor who wants to come home to peace and quiet while wrapped up in grandeur of architecture and decor.
And that sweet juxtapose of intimacy and distance all rolled up in one can be felt and is appreciated.
As a hotel, Imba Matombo also has amazing treasures for the small hotel lover with an eye for beauty, particularly with regards decor.
Each room is specially decorated and furnished to different tastes yet of equal class. What it means is that one can therefore spend fifteen nights at the establishment sampling each room and every night will feel like a new place and a new time. Such if the variety all in one! Antique railway sleeper furniture blends with big, bright and bold colours in African designs.
A burning log fire was at hand to warm the guests from the blistering Zimbabwe evenings, which of course, are quite pale compared to the European winters, but still unkind to the fingers and demand warming nevertheless.
It didn’t hurt that a soup of the day on the day courtesy of the ever-so-bubbly Howard was offered and it being a seafood soup, it was terribly irresistible and helped as an ideal winter warmer which was much needed.
The dinner choices were wide and varied and the diner can expect all the best of European dishes to internationally preferred choices that will suit every taste; literally. The variety of wines for dining are also very sophisticated yet cascade through various dining and spending patterns with the affordable rounded wine right up to the extravagant.
The private hotel also offers opportunities for a session in their gym, a round of golf, tennis in a greatly placed tennis court (near the bar!) and if you are just the lazy visitor, you can just play with the weights....doing the tedious task of lifting the beer from the table to the mouth until the glorious sunset presents itself!
And even the toilets are worth mentioning. Each has a different set of pictures of people with names who spent a night or more at the establishment which of course includes Desperate Housewives’ Alfre Woodard and Richard Branson. There is also a separate roll call of international who’s who personalities who ‘escaped the lens’ as they term it and were not ‘snapped’ on location. Nobody was on call to snap a picture of me so I did not get to have my picture in the toilet as well which was quite a shame.
Still the warmth and ambiance made it all up.
Imba Matombo, as a private lodge and intimate establishment charges an average of US$250 a night but it is worth every dime!