Addis Ababa was founded in 1886 by Emperor Menelik II who moved his capital city from Ankober (a town 175 km. to the northeast) to the top of the Entoto Mountains. Addis Ababa – the “new flower”, was later set at the foot of the Entoto Mountains. It is centrally located within Ethiopia as a capital city. The altitude of Addis varies from 3200m at the top of Entoto to
The modern town of Axum does not easily show the evidence of the splendors of its glorious past. Nevertheless, the historic footprints are represented by extensive traces of noble buildings with large stone foundations, side by side with the ruins of even more impressive structures such as: temples, fortresses, and rich palaces. The hand of nature in the form of heavy downpours of rain, seems to take the place of
Founded during the first decades of the 20th century at the southern tip of Lake Tana and along the banks of the Blue Nile, Bahir Dar has gone on to become the foremost tourist destination of north western Ethiopia. The city has an altitude of 1,830m above sea level and a tropical climate with an average temperature of 190c. At Bahir Dar you can spend days strolling along palm-lined avenues,
The graceful city of Gondar, embraced with incredibility, was founded by Emperor Fasilidas around 1635. It is famous for its many medieval castles, (constructed in the European middle age architectural style), and the design and decoration of its churches. An extensive compound, near Gondar’s center contains the massive ruins of a group of imposing castles like some African Camelot. The battlements and towers evoke images of gracious knights on horseback
The eastern part of Ethiopia, close to Djibouti and Somalia, is a region inhabited mainly by Muslims. The ancient walled city of Harar has more than 90 mosques and shrines mixed in with households behind its sixteenth century walls. This city was founded over 1000 years ago, and is considered to be one of the holiest centers of Muslim learning in the Islamic world. Harar, which is not too large
The ancient Ethiopian empire in the north, came to an abrupt end, when a ferocious woman warrior named Queen Judith, led her tribes up from the Semienmountains and destroyed Axum, the capital. After a power vacuum of nearly a century, the Zagwe dynasty came to power in the eleventh century. These dedicated Christian kings took it upon themselves to revive and restore the various churches destroyed by Judith. There are
The tantalizing and towering ruins of Yeha’s Temple of the Moon – built more than 2,500 years ago, in Sabaean times, is considered to be Ethiopia’s earliest high civilization. Whether this was a lone shrine of a temple , or part of a city with other similar edifices is not yet ascertained. Nevertheless, the fact that the wall is built with precise-fitting blocks of smoothly polished yellow limestone carefully placed