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Mekele

the capital city in the northern Tigray Region of Ethiopia

164km

13.483339.4667

Bahir Dar

town in Ethiopia

189km

11.637.3833
Sights (3)

Enkutatash

Church of Saint George, Lalibela

one of eleven monolithic churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia

887m

12.0317439.04113

Ras Dashen

mountain

149km

13.2358333338.37083333
Nature

we will see

Lalibela

Ethiopia

Ethiopian Christmas (Leddet) takes place 6-7 January each year. It's very colourful apparently.

Lalibela

Lalibela is a rural town of 15,000 people in a stunning setting at an elevation of 2,600 m (8,500 ft) in the midst of the Lasta mountains in the eastern highlands of Northern Ethiopia. Its unique and remarkable monolithic churches hewn from living rock, most built more than 900 years ago, are one of Ethiopia's leading attractions and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978.

During the reign of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, a member of the Zagwe dynasty who ruled Ethiopia in the late 12th century and early 13th century, the current town of Lalibela was known as Roha. The saint-king was named because a swarm of bees is said to have surrounded him at his birth, which his mother took as a sign of his future reign as emperor of Ethiopia. The names of several places in the modern town and the general layout of the rock-cut churches themselves are said to mimic names and patterns observed by Lalibela during the time he spent as a youth in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

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