Rwanda Safari

Culture & History in Rwanda

The museums, memorial sites and living traditions that give a Rwanda itinerary its other half — everything the parks do not explain.

Ethnographic Museum, Huye

The finest ethnographic collection in East Africa, and the best introduction to pre-colonial Rwanda.

King's Palace, Nyanza

The reconstructed royal court of the Rwandan monarchy, with the inyambo long-horned cattle.

Kandt House Museum

The first European residence in Kigali, now the natural history museum of Rwanda.

Kigali Genocide Memorial

The main memorial and burial site at Gisozi, where over 250,000 victims are buried.

Nyamata & Ntarama

Two church memorials in Bugesera, left largely as they were found.

Murambi Memorial

An unfinished school in the southern hills, and the most graphic memorial in the country.

Genocide Memorials

Which memorial sites exist, what each one holds, and how to visit them responsibly.

Intore Dance

The dance of the chosen ones, the drum orchestra behind it, and where to see it properly.

Imigongo Painting

Rwanda's distinctive geometric art, made from cow dung, ash and clay in the eastern hills.

Presidential Palace Museum

Habyarimana's residence in Kanombe, with the wreckage of the plane still in the garden.

Kwigira Museum

The palace that was never inaugurated, on a hill above Nyanza — now Rwanda's home-grown initiatives museum.

Mwima Mausoleum

The burial place of Rwanda's last two kings and Queen Rosalie Gicanda, on the old palace grounds.

Christ-Roi Church

Where a king was baptised and a country was consecrated — the pivot of Rwanda's conversion.

The Old King's Court

The first modern royal court of the Kingdom of Rwanda, now Nyanza's visitor information centre.

Rwanda African Art Museum

A private collection of over 100 masks and artefacts from Rwanda, Congo and Angola, in central Nyanza.

Isonga Cultural Troupe

The former National Ballet, performing Intore warrior dance and royal ritual at the King's Palace.

Three strands

The heritage sites divide into three. Pre-colonial and colonial: the Ethnographic Museum at Huye, the King's Palace at Nyanza with its royal cattle, and the Kandt House in Kigali, the building the capital grew from.

1994 and its memorials: the Kigali Genocide Memorial first, then the preserved sites at Nyamata and Ntarama and Murambi, and the Presidential Palace at Kanombe. The memorials guide covers which is which and how to visit responsibly.

Living tradition: Intore dance and the drum orchestras, and imigongo painting in the east. The craft cooperatives that keep both alive sit under Communities.

The Nyanza cluster. Six of these sites sit within a few kilometres of each other in the old royal capital — the King's Palace, the Kwigira Museum, the Mwima Mausoleum, Christ-Roi Church, the Old King's Court and the Rwanda African Art Museum, with the Isonga Cultural Troupe performing at the palace. Treat them as one destination: see Nyanza.

One rule applies across the memorial sites: one per day, and nothing scheduled after it.

Elsewhere in this guide