Arada Giyorgis Cathedral combines a striking architectural style with a distinctive history: the Orthodox cathedral is octagonal and features Belle Époque architecture. Italian prisoners built it in 1896. It also houses a relic of Saint George that had been taken to the battlefield. Architecture and religious memory meet here in a single structure.
Museums with different perspectives
The museums in Addis Ababa also each have their own focus. The Addis Ababa Museum displays portraits of Empress Taitu, Lij Iyasu and Empress Zewditu, as well as images from the capital’s early years. The National Museum of Ethiopia houses the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton Lucy, along with paleontological, historical and cultural artefacts. Images from the capital’s early history thus sit alongside a collection that reaches far beyond a single historical perspective.
The Bilalul Habeshi Museum in the Mechanisa neighbourhood in central Addis Ababa offers another perspective. Its collection includes architectural works from mosques and historic Muslim graves. A dedicated hall houses Ethiopia’s oldest manuscripts and Islamic writings. Architecture and written culture give this museum a distinct focus alongside the portraits and artefacts in the other collections.
Unity Park and its attractions
Unity Park was officially inaugurated and opened to the public on 10 October 2019. The attractions listed for the park include a zoo with meerkats, peacocks, cheetahs, white lions, wild dogs and gelada baboons, as well as an aviary and a safari. Alongside its cultural collections, the city is thus presented as offering other kinds of attractions.
Landscapes and culture in the destination of Ethiopia
Beyond the urban sights, the wider destination of Ethiopia offers other landscape and cultural perspectives. In the Konso Cultural Landscape, extensive dry-stone terraces protect the soil from erosion, retain water and form cultivated terraced fields. In the Gedeo Cultural Landscape, mature trees provide shade for enset, coffee and other food crops. Dense groups of megalithic monuments lie along the ridges; the Gedeo revere them and their elders care for them.
Ethiopia’s highland and forest landscapes also differ markedly. Bale Mountains National Park encompasses Africa’s largest area of Afro-alpine habitat above 3,000 metres, as well as numerous glacial lakes, wetlands and moorlands. The southern slopes of the Bale Mountains give way to Harenna Forest, Ethiopia’s second-largest moist tropical forest, which also includes areas of cloud forest. In Simien National Park, rugged mountain peaks, deep valleys and steep precipices with elevation differences of around 1,500 metres shape the landscape. Walia ibex, gelada baboons and Ethiopian wolves live there.
Discover more destinations: North Shewa, Kitime, Oromia, Somali, Dire Dawa, Amhara, Harari, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
Return to the main travel overview: Ethiopia.
