Gondar and Bahir Dar

Gondar was founded by the Emporer Fasilidas in 1635 and served as the capital for 250 years. We visited the Royal Enclosure with its 17th Century castles and palaces and the Church of Debre Birhan Selassie. The church is special in that it is rectangular (not round like all of the other Ethiopian churches and built to the same dimensions as King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem) with beautiful murals on the interior walls. Really worth a visit!

African Castles

Horses in ceremonial dress

Murals in the Church of Debre Birhan Selassie.

Angels looking down from the cieling of the Church of Debre Birhan Selassie.

Angel looking at the ceiling of the Church of Debre Birhan Selassie.

From Gondar we took the main road down to Bahir Dar on the southern end of Lake Tana. That afternoon we visited the Blue Nile Falls, where the waters of Lake Tana start their long journey down to the mouth of the Nile. The next morning we took a pleasant boat trip out to a few of the island monasteries.

The Blue Nile Falls

A priest showing us a Bible, handwritten on goatskin at St Mary's Church on Lake Tana

Little Bee-Eaters