Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands city — Christmas Pass mountain views, Honde Valley tea estates, and trout streams between Zimbabwe and Mozambique
Mutare is Zimbabwe's fourth-largest city — a pleasant colonial-era city in a mountain valley at the foot of the Eastern Highlands, where the Bvumba Mountains rise to nearly 2,000 metres and the climate is the most temperate in Zimbabwe. The city is the gateway to some of Zimbabwe's most spectacular mountain scenery: Nyanga National Park (with Zimbabwe's highest waterfall and the mysterious 'Zimbabwe ruins' of the ancient Nyanga people), the Bvumba Botanical Gardens (with views across the Mozambique border on clear days), and the tea estates of the Honde Valley where Zimbabwe's finest tea has…
Mutare was originally established in 1890 by the British South Africa Company as a fort and administrative post at the head of the Beira railway line from Mozambique — a key node in Cecil Rhodes's plan for a British corridor from the Cape to Cairo. The original settlement was 20km from its current site; it was moved to the Mutare valley in 1896 when the railway alignment was finalised. The city was known as Umtali until 1982 when it was renamed Mutare after independence. The Eastern Highlands around Mutare were settled by British farmers in the early 20th century and developed into the tea, t…