---
title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Asmara, Eritrea | Wimup"
description: "Asmara on Wimup: the Fiat Tagliero and the listed modernist centre ranked, the espresso bars worth the hour, the steam train down the escarpment."
url: https://wimup.com/city/asmara
type: City guide
updated: 2026-10-17
publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com)
---

# Top 10 Things To Do in Asmara

Asmara, Eritrea · Africa · By Wimup Editorial, 12 min read

Asmara is a 1930s Italian new town at 2,325 metres, and almost nothing has been knocked down since. UNESCO listed the whole centre in 2017, which makes this the rare capital where the sight is the street plan itself, read on foot with an espresso in hand.

## Quick answer

Two days is right. The first walks the modernist grid: the Fiat Tagliero service station, Cinema Impero on Harnet Avenue, the Orthodox cathedral and the Great Mosque, then the evening passeggiata when the whole city is out. The second takes the National Museum, the metalworkers at Medebar and the steam charter down the escarpment. Anything beyond 25 km needs a permit.

## Quick facts

- **Best months:** Nov · Dec · Jan · Feb
- **Ideal length:** 2–3 days
- **Budget per day:** $60–120
- **Language:** Tigrinya, with Arabic, English and Italian
- **Getting around:** On foot in the centre, taxis beyond it
- **Tourism board:** [Official site](https://shabait.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)

## The 10 best things to do in Asmara

### 1. Fiat Tagliero Building

Modernist landmark · Central Asmara, a short walk west of Harnet Avenue

Giuseppe Pettazzi designed this service station in 1938 with two concrete wings, each 30 metres long and holding up nothing at all. Colonial engineers refused to sign it off, insisting the cantilevers could not stand. They have stood ever since. Restored in 2003 and listed Category I, so not a detail of it may be altered.

- **Time:** 20 min
- **Cost:** Free, from the street
- **Best at:** Morning light
- **Tip:** It is still a working forecourt, so ask before photographing staff

Links: [UNESCO](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1550/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)

### 2. Harnet Avenue at passeggiata hour

Street · Harnet Avenue, central Asmara

The palm lined main avenue, still called Kombishtato after the fenced colonial quarter. Late afternoon the city walks it end to end, in and out of the cafes, and that hour is the single best thing Asmara does. Most of the listed facades stand on it or a block off it.

- **Time:** 1 hr
- **Cost:** Free
- **Best at:** 17:00 to 19:00
- **Tip:** Take a table on the pavement rather than inside: the point is the street

### 3. Cinema Impero

Cinema · Harnet Avenue, central Asmara

Mario Messina built it in 1937 for 1,800 seats, and it is the photograph everyone takes of Asmara: three tiers of porthole windows above the avenue, more than 45 bas reliefs inside. Seventy years of Horn of Africa conflict went past it and left the structure sound.

- **Time:** 45 min
- **Cost:** A few nakfa for a screening
- **Best at:** Evening
- **Tip:** Ask at the desk about seeing the auditorium if nothing is showing

Links: [UNESCO](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1550/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)

### 4. Nda Mariam Orthodox Cathedral

Cathedral · Central Asmara

The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo cathedral, dedicated to St Mary, and one of the three religious buildings that define the skyline here. Services run in Geez and the courtyard fills long before the doors do.

- **Time:** 30 min
- **Cost:** Free
- **Best at:** Sunday morning
- **Tip:** Shoes come off at the door and shoulders stay covered

### 5. Al Khulafa Al Rashiudin Great Mosque

Mosque · At the head of the square by the covered markets, central Asmara

Asmara's principal mosque, set at the head of a large square beside the markets. With the Orthodox cathedral and the Catholic church it completes the trio that makes the case for this city better than any museum does.

- **Time:** 20 min
- **Cost:** Free
- **Best at:** Outside prayer times
- **Tip:** The craft stalls behind it sell wicker and pottery

### 6. Church of Our Lady of the Rosary

Church · Harnet Avenue, central Asmara

Oreste Scanavini's Lombard Romanesque church of 1923, built for the Apostolic Vicariate of Eritrea. Everyone calls it the cathedral, which it never formally was. The free standing bell tower is the landmark you navigate the centre by.

- **Time:** 30 min
- **Cost:** Free
- **Best at:** Late afternoon
- **Tip:** The Ministry of Tourism permit office sits across the road

### 7. Medebar Market

Market · Medebar, east of the centre

An open air workshop district where everything arrives as scrap and leaves as something else: tyres cut into sandals, corrugated iron beaten into buckets, Italian olive tins turned into coffee pots. The spice grinders work the southeastern corner.

- **Time:** 1 hr
- **Cost:** Free
- **Best at:** Weekday mornings
- **Tip:** Ask before photographing anyone at a forge, and expect to be asked back

### 8. National Museum of Eritrea

Museum · The former Comboni Sisters school, central Asmara

Five sections cover natural history, medieval Eritrea, the ancient ports of Adulis and Dahlak, the 1961 to 1991 war of liberation and the country's nine nationalities. Founded in 1992 in the Governor's Palace and moved here in 1997.

- **Time:** 1–2 hr
- **Cost:** Ticket at the door
- **Best at:** Mid-morning
- **Tip:** The liberation rooms are the strongest and sit at the end, so pace the earlier ones

### 9. The steam charter to Arbaroba

Railway · Asmara railway station, west of the centre

The Massawa line was laid between 1887 and 1932 and reopened in 2003 for charters only. The Sunday run to Arbaroba and Nefasit takes about three hours through the escarpment, stops in the village and ends with a coffee ceremony.

- **Time:** 3 hr
- **Cost:** Chartered, priced per group
- **Best at:** Sunday
- **Tip:** Book weeks ahead: the crew needs the notice to raise steam

### 10. Tank Graveyard

Memorial site · Outskirts of Asmara

A field of armour wrecked in the thirty year war of independence, stacked where it was dragged. Not a formal attraction and none the weaker for it: nothing else in the city states the cost of 1991 so plainly.

- **Time:** 45 min
- **Cost:** Free, permit required
- **Best at:** Morning
- **Tip:** A local guide arranges the permit, so treat this as a booked visit rather than a walk

## Best modernist architecture in Asmara

The inscribed centre runs to 481 hectares. These are the buildings to walk between.

1. **Cinema Roma** (Cinema · Ticket · Central Asmara): Showing films for almost 90 years. The 2005 restoration put the 1940s back.
2. **Asmara Opera House** (1920 · Free to enter · Harnet Avenue): Odoardo Cavagnari, 1920. No performances now, but the cafe inside is worth the stop.
3. **Selam Hotel** (1937 · Art Deco · Central Asmara): Opened 1938 as the Albergo CIAAO. Eritrea was declared independent here in 1991.
4. **Governor's Palace** (Exterior only · Central Asmara): The colonial administration building, now the President's office. Exterior only.
5. **Asmara Railway Station** (Railway · Free · West of the centre): The Italian terminus of the Massawa line, and where the steam charters start.
6. **Ministry of Education** (Exterior only · Central Asmara): One of the earliest modernist buildings in the city, built as the Casa del Fascio.
7. **Villa Roma** (1930s · Exterior · Central Asmara): 1930s Art Deco and Futurist lines, symmetrical and almost unornamented.
8. **Mai Jah Jah Fountain** (Free · Viewpoint · Gheza Banda): A terraced fountain built as colonial parade ground, now the view back over the roofs.

## Best cafes & bars in Asmara

Italian espresso culture stayed after the Italians left. Peak hour is four to six.

1. **Sweet Asmara Caffe** (Cafe · Cash · Harnet Avenue): The cappuccino and pastry stop in the middle of everything. Loud, fast, always full.
2. **Bar Pasticceria Vittoria** (Cafe · Cash · Central Asmara): Pastries and serious coffee, a few steps from the main post office.
3. **Cine Roma Cafe** (Cafe · Cash · Central Asmara): The cinema foyer turned into a cafe, which is the best seat in the building.
4. **Bar Zilli** (Cafe · Cash · Central Asmara): A cappuccino and a croissant in one of the listed modernist interiors.
5. **Mocambo** (Bar · Late · Central Asmara): The city centre nightspot, and the one people name first when the cafes shut.

## Best restaurants in Asmara

Eritrean stews on injera, and the Italian kitchen that never left the city.

1. **Ghibabo Restaurant and Pizzeria** (Italian & Eritrean · Asmara): Fish, lasagne and kitcha fitfit, and the cleanest dining room in the country.
2. **Blue Bird** (Eritrean · Asmara): Traditional Eritrean cooking. Order the fish and eat it off the injera.
3. **Ghirmay** (Eritrean · Asmara): Traditional plates served in an Eritrean house rather than a dining room.
4. **Spaghetti and Pizza House** (Italian · Asmara): The plain case for Asmara's Italian half, done without ceremony.
5. **Roof Garden** (Asian · Asmara): Chinese and Indian cooking, and expensive by local standards. Worth it for the view.
6. **Silver Star** (Modern · Asmara): Modern cooking in a dining room hung with art. The city's dress-up option.

## Best museums & memorials in Asmara

Three stops, and together they carry the thirty year war and everything before it.

1. **National Museum of Eritrea** (Museum · Ticket · Central Asmara): Five sections, from Adulis and Dahlak to the liberation years.
2. **Tank Graveyard** (Free · Permit · Outskirts): Wrecked armour stacked in a field on the edge of town. Permit required.
3. **Bahti Meskerem Square** (Free · Open · Central Asmara): The national parade ground, and where the Martyrs' Day vigil is held each June.

## Best markets & shopping in Asmara

Four markets, and only one of them sells anything a tourist came for.

1. **Medebar Market** (Free · Mornings · Medebar): The recycling workshops. Scrap in one end, sandals and coffee pots out the other.
2. **Asmara central market** (Free · Daily · Central Asmara): Fresh vegetables, fruit, pulses and spices, sold by the sack.
3. **The craft market behind the Great Mosque** (Free · Daily · By the mosque): Wicker and pottery, made locally and priced for locals.
4. **The silver and antique shops** (Shops · Cash · Harnet Avenue): Prayer scrolls, old Bibles, crosses, incense burners and worked silver.

## Best neighborhoods in Asmara

The colonial grid in the middle, and four districts that read nothing like it.

1. **Kombishtato** (Central · Maakel Ketema): The listed centre, built as the fenced European quarter. Everything is walkable from it.
2. **Tiravolo** (East · Tiravolo): East of the centre, residential and quiet, with St Michael's Church at its heart.
3. **Gheza Banda** (West · Gheza Banda): West, above the old railway yards, and the district the Mai Jah Jah steps climb.
4. **Godaif** (Southwest · Godaif): Southwest and out toward the airport road, where the live music happens at weekends.

## Best day trips in Asmara

Every one of these needs a permit filed before you leave. Plan two days ahead.

1. **Massawa** (2–3 hr · Permit · Northern Red Sea): Coral stone streets on the Red Sea, about 120 km down the escarpment road.
2. **Keren** (Mondays · Permit · Anseba): Go on a Monday, when the livestock market fills with camels, and see the Tigu fort.
3. **Debre Bizen** (2 hr hike · Permit · Near Nefasit): A monastery of the 1350s above Nefasit, two hours up on foot. Men only inside.
4. **Nefasit** (45 min · Permit · Northern Red Sea): Where the hairpins and the railway meet, about 25 km down the Massawa road.
5. **Dekemhare** (Half day · Permit · Debub): A second Italian town in miniature, with the same 1930s facades and no crowd.

## Festivals & annual events in Asmara (2026)

- **Genna** (7 January): Orthodox Christmas. The churches hold a vigil and the stews come out the next day.
- **Timket** (19 January): Epiphany in the Eritrean Orthodox calendar, and a processional day across the city.
- **Fenkil Day** (10 February): Marks Operation Fenkil and the taking of Massawa. The coast celebrates hardest.
- **Women's Day** (8 March): A public holiday here, and tied to the role women held in the liberation war.
- **Independence Day** (24 May): A week of carnivals, street performances, cycling races and concerts before the day itself.
- **Martyrs' Day** (20 June): A candlelight vigil fills Harnet Avenue and Bahti Meskerem Square. Sombre, not festive.
- **Revolution Day** (1 September): Marks the start of the armed struggle in 1961. Parades and speeches in the capital.
- **Meskel** (27 September): The Orthodox feast of the finding of the True Cross, celebrated around a bonfire.

## Must-try dishes in Asmara, Eritrea

- **Injera**: The sour teff flatbread everything else is served on, and eaten with.
- **Zigni**: Beef simmered long in berbere until the sauce goes dark. The national plate.
- **Tsebhi shiro**: Chickpea or broad bean puree with garlic, ginger, tomato and chilli.
- **Dorho tsebhi**: Chicken stew in berbere, usually with a boiled egg turned through it.
- **Alicha**: The mild one: vegetables cooked without berbere, for the days of fasting.
- **Hilbet**: A smooth paste of lentils and faba beans, spread rather than spooned.
- **Ful**: Stewed fava beans with kitcha bread, sold at the morning stalls.
- **Kitcha fit-fit**: Shredded kitcha oiled and spiced, served with yoghurt and berbere. Breakfast.

## Asmara transport & airports

- **Asmara International Airport** (ASM): About 8 km from the centre, so 10 to 15 minutes by taxi for roughly 150 to 250 nakfa. Turkish Airlines, EgyptAir, flydubai, Etihad and Flynas fly here. [Turkish Airlines](https://www.turkishairlines.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)
- **Taxis** (Cash): Not every taxi has a meter, so agree the fare before you get in. Nakfa in small notes, because change is scarce and cards are not an option anywhere.
- **Travel permits** (25 km): Every foreign visitor needs a permit to go more than 25 km beyond Asmara. They are issued at the Ministry of Tourism office on Harnet Avenue for about 150 nakfa, one per destination.
- **On foot** (Free): The listed centre is a compact orthogonal grid and walking it is the point. At 2,325 metres the first day feels harder than the map suggests, so take the hills slowly.

## Asmara at a glance

- **Country:** Eritrea
- **Region:** Maekel (Central) Region, on the highland plateau at about 2,325 m above sea level
- **Population:** About 1.07 million, the CIA World Factbook estimate for 2023
- **UNESCO:** Inscribed in 2017 as Asmara: A Modernist African City, criteria (ii) and (iv), 481 hectares with a 1,203 hectare buffer
- **Language:** Tigrinya and Arabic are the working languages, English is widely understood, and Italian still turns up among older Asmarinos
- **Currency:** Nakfa (ERN), pegged at 15 to the US dollar. Cash only: foreign cards do not work and there are no ATMs a visitor can use
- **Climate:** Around 16°C on average, between 8 and 23°C through the year, with most of the 50 cm of rain falling from April to August
- **Permits:** Travel beyond 25 km from Asmara needs a permit, issued at the Ministry of Tourism office on Harnet Avenue for about 150 nakfa
- **Time zone:** East Africa Time, UTC+3, no daylight saving
- **Calling code:** +291
- **Airports:** Asmara International Airport (ASM), about 8 km from the centre, 10 to 15 minutes by taxi
- **Power:** 230V, socket types C and L

## Interesting facts

- UNESCO listed the centre in 2017, making Asmara the first modernist city in Africa on the list.
- Most of the listed centre went up between 1935 and 1941, the last six years of Italian building.
- The Fiat Tagliero's concrete wings reach 30 metres each way with nothing holding them up.
- At 2,325 metres Asmara is the second highest capital in Africa and the sixth highest in the world.
- The railway down to Massawa took from 1887 to 1932 to build and now runs charter trains only.

## Asmara travel FAQ

### How many days do you need in Asmara?

Two full days. One walks the listed centre: the Fiat Tagliero, Cinema Impero, the cathedral, the mosque and the avenue at passeggiata hour. The second takes the National Museum, Medebar market and the steam charter. Add a day for each permitted trip out to Massawa or Keren.

### Do you need a permit to leave Asmara?

Yes. Every foreign visitor needs a permit to travel more than 25 km beyond the city, and it is issued per destination at the Ministry of Tourism office on Harnet Avenue for about 150 nakfa. Keren asks for a vehicle registration number. File them a day or two ahead.

### Can you use a credit card in Eritrea?

No. Eritrea runs on cash. Foreign cards do not work, there are no ATMs a visitor can use, and hotels and restaurants take notes. Bring US dollars, change them officially at a bureau or a recognised hotel desk, and keep the receipts, because they are checked on the way out.

### When is the best time to visit Asmara?

November to February. Days are dry and mild at this altitude, the average sits near 16°C, and the light suits walking the modernist facades. Most of the year's 50 cm of rain falls between April and August, with July and August the wettest.

### Is the Asmara steam train still running?

It runs, but only as a charter. The Massawa line reopened in 2003 and there is no timetable: a group books the whole train, usually for the three hour round trip to Arbaroba and Nefasit on a Sunday. Book weeks ahead so the crew can prepare the locomotive.

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Part of the [Eritrea guide](https://wimup.com/country/eritrea.md) · [Africa](https://wimup.com/africa.md)

## Sources

- [Asmara tourism board](https://shabait.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)
- [Fiat Tagliero Building: UNESCO](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1550/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)
- [Asmara International Airport: Turkish Airlines](https://www.turkishairlines.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)
- Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.