Lake Victoria at the equator — where Africa's skies begin
Entebbe sits on a peninsula in Lake Victoria — the world's largest tropical lake and source of the White Nile — and has a languid, botanical beauty that is the opposite of Kampala's chaos 40km away. The Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) is one of East Africa's finest small zoos, where you can stand 2 metres from a mountain gorilla. The Botanical Garden on the lakeshore, planted by the British in 1898, is where the original Tarzan films were shot — elephants, vervet monkeys, and black-and-white colobus still wander through.
Entebbe (from 'entebe', Luganda for 'seat of power') was the capital of the Uganda Protectorate during British colonial rule (1894–1962) — the governor's residence, secretariat, and botanical garden were all built here before the capital moved to Kampala at independence. The city gained international notoriety on 4 July 1976 when Israeli commandos carried out Operation Entebbe: a 2,500km raid to free 102 hostages held by Palestinian hijackers at Entebbe Airport. The airport's old terminal building, bullet holes and all, still stands as a museum.