Ethiopia - Oasis Highlights

There are so many highlights in this fascinating country that it is impossible to list them all here. Our travel consultants will discuss your interests and be able to put a specific itinerary together for you, but below are a few must seeā€™s!

Aksum

The oldest continuously-inhabited city in sub-Saharan Africa, Aksum was founded more than 3,000 years ago in the days of the Queen of Sheba. It served as the capital of the Aksumite Kingdom, which was the dominant trade entity in the Horn of Africa for over a millennium prior to the rise of Islam, stretching from the Sudanese Nile across the Red Sea to Yemen. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, Aksum today is replete with towering obelisks, ruined palaces, engraved tablets and other ancient artefacts

 

Gondor

Dubbed the Camelot of Africa, the city’s physical and architectural centrepiece is Fasil Ghebbi, a stone-walled Royal Compound containing half a dozen fairytale castles including the three-storey original built by Emperor Fasil in the 1630s. The Fasil Ghebbi UNESCO World Heritage Site also incorporates several more remote constructions, most notably the Church of Debre Berhan Selassie, with its beautifully painted interior.

 

Simien Mountains National Park

Ethiopiaā€™s premier trekking and walking destination, the 412km2 Simien Mountains National Park was inscribed as a Natural World Heritage Site in 1979, whereupon UNESCO lauded it as ā€œone of the worldā€™s most spectacular landscapes, with jagged mountain peaks deep valleys and sharp precipices dropping some 1,500mā€. the splendid scenery and hiking opportunities, the Afromontane meadows and moorlands of the upper Simiens also form one of Ethiopia’s most important biodiversity hotspots, populated by an alluring wealth of endemic plants and animals including Walia ibex, gelada baboon and Ethiopian wolf.

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