Eritrea Complete Guide 2026: Asmara Modernist City, Massawa, Dahlak Islands & Red Sea Heritage
Browse more guides: Eritrea travel | Africa destinations Eritrea Complete Guide 2026: Asmara Modernist City, Massawa, Dahlak Islands & Red Sea Heritage TL;DR I went to Eritrea expecting an obscure Horn of Africa stop and came back convinced it is one of the most architecturally unusual cities I have ever walked through. Asmara at 2,300 m sits on a plateau with around 800,000 people, more than 400 preserved Italian Modernist, Rationalist, Futurist and Art Deco buildings from 1936-41, and a UNESCO World Heritage inscription from 2017 that earned it the nickname Africa's Little Rome. From there I dropped 2,300 m down to Massawa on the Red Sea, a 1,500-year-old port with Ottoman, Egyptian and Italian (1885-1941) layers, then took a boat to the Dahlak Archipelago, 350 islands of coral, manta rays and 30 m visibility. Add Keren's Coptic baobab shrine, Qohaito and Senafe Aksumite stelae, and the 90-minute bunabet coffee ceremony, and you get a small country (6.7 million peopl...