Monday, July 14, 2025

It lies at an altitude of over 2,300 meters above sea level, within the Eritrean Highlands, and is gradually leaving its mark as one of the most distinctive holiday locations in Africa. Whereas the focus is often put on safari holidays or beach breaks, the capital of the East African nation has something different to provide: an alternate and attractive experience. Asmara is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of surviving Italian modernist buildings, with more than 4,300 individual structures dotting its townscape—the largest concentration anywhere in the world, aside from Europe.

For curious travelers seeking rich culture, design heritage, and real continental city life with little or no mass-market exposure, Asmara presents an exceptional and indelible glimpse of African modernity with Italian sophistication.

Walking the streets of Asmara is like strolling through a city frozen in time. The infrastructure is pedestrian and intimate with broad boulevards, low structures, and coherent architectural themes that echo design values of the early 20th century. Asmara’s special preservation gave it UNESCO World Heritage designation in 2017 due to its protection of Rationalist, Art Deco, and Futurist architectural styles in an African cultural setting.

Where most ancient towns have witnessed renovations erode original character, Asmara is surprisingly authentic. Italian colonial structures still possess their original facades, materials, and design—giving aficionados of architecture and culture travelers a living museum experience.

One of Asmara’s architectural symbols is the Fiat Tagliero Building, an aircraft-shaped concrete structure with 30-meter wings, and which was designed in 1938. Still standing intact, it still takes one’s breath away as an engineering marvel of the pre-WWII era.

Film aficionados will be in their element with the retro cinemas dotted around the city, which remain operational on the original equipment and possess perfectly preserved interiors. These buildings transport the observer back in time, offering intimate insights into the rich past of Asmara.

Besides architecture, the city bustles with everyday culture. Local coffee shops serve rich espresso in retro settings, and hand-painted signs line still streets. The ambiant scene is filled with stories, with each drop of coffee and all sidewalk encounters appearing to be part of the kept neighborhood heritage.

Asmara’s altitude assures it a generally temperate climate, and it’s one of the most temperate capital cities in Eastern Africa. Visitors are treated to sunny skies, little humidity, and cool air—wonderful outdoors sightseeing, picture-taking, and walking.

The dry season, October to March, is the optimal time of visit, with sunny days and clear vistas of the surrounding mountain scenery.

Why Asmara is particularly unique is that it has been preserved organically. Years of restricted foreign investment and development happened to spare the city the fate of over-modernization. Unlike the cities in which tourism-led growth tends to dominate heritage, Asmara’s architectural splendor is still largely free from commercial sprawl or high-rises.

The restoration is carried out with the utmost care under the coordination of the Eritrean Government, UNESCO, and local skilled craftsmen with the use of ancient techniques and materials to preserve this architectural heritage without eliminating its identity.

Asmara beckons with an intimate experience of its culture and heritage. Local cafes, still operating with 1940s espresso equipment and original fittings, provide an uninterrupted experience of the past. These small, family-run establishments communicate with their décor, menus, and locals in attendance.

For the more curious, guided walking tours conducted by architectural specialists offer rich histories of building design, colonial involvement, and the intersection of Eritrean and Italian styles in the development of the city’s visual culture.

It is its calm, however, that most characterizes Asmara. Minimal air links—mainly from Cairo, Dubai, and several domestic hubs—the city is off the beaten tourist track, and this has its implications: no crowds, no queue-plagued attractions, and no commercialized roads.

Guests often remark at the peacefulness, the freedom to breathe and see, and the rare experience of walking the capital city in which culture, history, and design are still founded on authenticity.

Among Asmara’s hotels are charming colonial buildings that have been kept nicely intact. These boutique hotels mingle retro swagger and first-world luxury, allowing travelers to sleep between the walls of history. Closer still, neighborhood locally owned and operated guesthouses in the area of Godaif offer the thrill of being close to daily Eritrean life and peering over classic rooftops, cathedrals, and hidden courtyards.

Asmara is an appealing answer to those looking for an alternate African narrative—-a world that has neither been defined with safari reserves or resort coast, but with cities in which history, culture, and architecture abound in quiet grandeur. While the world’s travelers are in search of raw beauty and authenticity, Asmara’s European-modernist town-planning style, year-round temperate climate, and long-held conventions render it one of the continent’s most unique cultural attractions. It is not somewhere to visit—it is somewhere to experience, to explore, and to leave changed