More than a resort

Before I set foot at the place last week, I had heard of ‘the other Serena’ sitting somewhere in Kigo on the shores of Lake Victoria, a few kilometres off the highway to Entebbe Airport from the township of Lweza. But I hadn’t heard a syllable about the fact that the resort features some stunning splendor which is exclusive only to it in the entire country.

I only saw that unique splendour when I spent a weekend at the resort last month, and management informed the reason the splendour hasn’t been known to many yet is because the resort is still a work in progress. Whereat some of the unique features are yet to be fully complete, and such that they didn’t want to publicise them before their complete construction.

Management, however, informed me that all the bits still under construction should be complete by the end of this year. They also informed me that the whole place is being designed to replicate the splendor of a classic, rustic Italian resort. Naturally, my journalist soul could only think of writing home about the unique features I had seen.

A Venetian Marina
For the uninitiated, a marina is a specially designed harbor with moorings for pleasure craft and small boats, where the shores of natural soil or sand are redesigned with concrete and cement. This is the kind of thing that has been created at the resort, where at the lake’s shoreline has been reconstructed with concrete to make a river-like arm stretching out to the lake.

The beauty that has been thus evoked is quite hard to describe. Allen Ampaire, the head of Sales at Serena Hotels, explains that they decided to construct a marina instead of a usual beach because “there are already many hotels on sandy beaches in Uganda yet we wanted to offer something pleasantly different from what is already in place in Uganda.”

On its lakeward roll, the marina at Lake Victoria resort starts at the entrance of a large a clubhouse designed to hold a restaurant and a bar and a conference room, and Ampaire says this is designed to have people who might not be going boating relaxing in the picturesque setting besides the marina.

A colosseum wedding venue
You know that ancient arena where Roman citizens gathered to watch fighting matches that were not only between men but also between men and beasts. It’s a smallish but also modern replica of that same arena which sits beyond the residential villas and next to the golf course at the Serena Lake Victoria Resort.

Only the colosseum wasn’t constructed to host Moses Golola in his attempts to punch some white man and make his skin black, rather as a venue for auspicious events, especially weddings. With lawns that can sit as many as 1,500 people, the colosseum has a provision for setting up an altar for those who want to have their church service at the colosseum, a provision for setting up tents, among others.

Golf Course Rising
This will be another elegant addition to the resort when it opens later this year. Sitting between the marina, the colosseum and the residential villa, its splendour will mainly come from the fact that it will make for a picturesque playing field right on the shores. However only nine of the 18 holes will be available for use this year, as reclaiming the lake shores has proved a tough challenge.