Given the British colonial history of Kenya, the Severin Sea Lodge is an anomaly. It was founded by Rudolf Schulte, a German who was lured to east Africa in the 1960s by stories told by some Belgian friends who were big game hunters and ended up opening the Bamburi Inn.

Fast forward a few decades, and the somewhat expanded Severin Sea Lodge is still owned and operated by Germans. Even the website is in both German and English — which means that the mix of guests is different from that of other resorts.

My Wi-Fi-equipped room was on the second floor of a thatched roof “hut” reached by a spiral staircase that sometimes also was a playground for the many monkeys and cats wandering the property. The circular room – with what appeared to be hand-hewn wooden furniture – was the only room I’d stayed in in Kenya that had an overhead fan. Another of my room’s appointments was something I’ve not seen outside Europe: a waste basket with separate containers inside for recyclables and for trash.

Despite its German heritage, the Severin Sea Lodge offers an English-style afternoon tea to full-board guests such as myself, and I definitely enjoyed the crust-less tomato and cucumber sandwiches. Both dinner and breakfast were served buffet-style in the Kisima Restaurant — it was Italian night when I was there (let’s see: lasagna and spaghetti carbonara with people all around me speaking German in a Kenyan resort on the Indian Ocean). I was only there one night, so I didn’t have a chance to try the other eateries on site.