Experience the best of Mek'ele

Mekelle stands at more than 2,000 metres on the northern Ethiopian plateau, in the region of Tigray, and has grown into the main city of the north. Emperor Yohannes IV made it his seat in the 1880s, and his stone palace, with its towers and carved wooden doors, is now a museum of the imperial period. The surrounding country is a landscape of sandstone ridges and flat-topped mountains.

To the north-west lies the Gheralta area, where churches are cut into cliffs and reached by climbing steep rock faces or narrow ledges. To the east, the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest and lowest places on Earth, has salt flats, the coloured sulphur springs of Dallol and the Erta Ale volcano. Camel caravans carry blocks of salt cut from the flats.

Tigrayan cooking is built around injera with spicy stews, among them tsebhi, and shiro, a smooth sauce of ground chickpeas, and strong coffee is served with ceremony. Honey and barley beer are local products. At this altitude the days are warm and the nights cool, and the main rains fall in July and August.