Madagascar - DESTINATIONS & HOTELS
Antananarivo
With a population of over 1.3 million, Antananorivo is a melting pot of cultures. Antananorivo is designed in a ‘V’ shape, with both sides of the town meeting in the middle where the palace is. Typically, Analakely and Tsaralalana, which is the lower part of the town, is a place with local food outlets and shop fronts and the upper part of the town, Antaninarenina and Isoraka, is where to go for fine dining cuisine, museums, jewellery shops and craft boutiques. The city is well worth a few days on its own.
Antananarivo has been called one of the most beautiful and colourful cities in the world with its scattering of red clay houses, which form the backdrop to euphorbias, steepled churches, and the city’s palace, which sits on top of a hill, overlooking purple bougainvillaea and jacaranda. Green and brown paddy fields are managed by its farmers up to the edge of the city. Zebu carts are pulled along the dusty roads. Colourful clothes lie drying on the hillsides and edge of the canals.