Ethiopia Meskel Small Group Tour

Depart from London Heathrow on the Ethiopian Airlines flight at 20h15 to Addis Ababa.

On arrival at 06h15, our professional guide and driver will meet and transfer you to the Jupiter International Hotel for a 2 night stay with breakfast included.

Rest up until lunch time when we will then head off to see the Meskel celebrations. On our way to Meskel Square, where the festivities are focused, we’ll see thousands of orthodox Christians marching to the square where a ceremonial bonfire is lit. We will return to our hotel for dinner. More hotel info   |   Hotel image gallery

Guided city tour which includes Mount Entoto and the National Archaeological Museum, where visitors can see exhibits ranging from the 3.5 million-year-old bones of Lucy, from Axumite and Gondarene times, through to the period of the monarchs Tewodros and Menelik II.

This morning there is an early transfer to the airport for the one hour flight to Bahir Dar at Lake Tana. Measuring 68 km wide and 73 km long, this is Ethiopia’s largest lake and is dotted with islands, on many of which churches and monasteries are found. We will stay for 1 night at Abbay Minch Lodge which is set in a former coffee plantation where the bird-watching is fantastic.

We will take a boat trip to Zeghie Peninsula, known for its 14th century round, grass roofed churches and their wall murals. We will visit two churches, Betra Mariam and Ura Kidane Mehret, and whilst walking through dense forest there will be lots of bird life to spot. After lunch the tour takes us to visit the spectacular Blue Nile Falls, approximately 30 kilometres from town. More hotel info   |   Hotel image gallery

After breakfast, we’ll drive to Gondar, formerly the imperial capital from the 17th to mid-19th centuries. The Royal Enclosure or Fasil Gibbi, provides visitors with a powerful idea of what it was like in its heyday. Within the compound are castles of various Gondarene emperors. Although most of Gondar’s churches were destroyed during the Mahdist invasion from Sudan in the 1880s, a fine example is Debre Berhan Selassie which was spared. Its walls and ceiling are completely covered with murals of which the angels’ faces on the ceiling have become a common motif in Ethiopian design.

As Gondar is the best place for experiencing the Ethiopian tradition of Azmari music, we can visit Belageru before we transfer to Goha Hotel a 1 night stay. More hotel info   |   Hotel image gallery

After breakfast we drive 4 ½ hours to the Simien Mountains National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since the late 1960s and among Africa’s most dramatic scenery. The ‘chess pieces of the Gods’, as one writer described them, tower over precipitous gorges, river valleys and plains stretching all the way to Eritrea. There are many peaks over 4,000 meters and we will look for the endemic Gelada or bleeding heart baboon, critically endangered Walia Ibex and many endemic birds as well as raptors such as Lammergeyer. The park is also famous for its Afro-Alpine flora, meadows and grasslands punctuated by Giant Lobelia and flowering Red Hot Pokers. We should see displays of yellow Meskel daisies in the highlands. We will stay overnight in Simien Lodge, the highest-lying hotel in Africa.

Today we will visit the Simien Mountains National Park again before driving back to Gondar to stay overnight at Goha Hotel.

We will be transferred to the airport for the flight to Lalibela, where on arrival we check in at Jerusalem Guest House for a 2 night stay.

At the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th century, King Lalibela of the Zaghwe dynasty built a series of rock hewn churches – the New Jerusalem as he called it – now rightly acknowledged to be one of the wonders of the world. There are 11 churches in the town named after him with others in the surrounding countryside and all are still in use today. Today we will visit the first group of churches.

After breakfast we set off on mule or on foot to the church of Ashetun Mariam which is approximately a 4 hour round trip. We will pass small villages and there will be marvellous views of the surrounding countryside from the top of the mountain where the church is located. After lunch we will travel to the cave church of Yemrehane Christos, built by the King of the same name before the reign of King Lalibela. The church is constructed inside a cave in Axumite style, similar to the 7th century monastery at Debre Damo in Tigray.

We will fly to Axum, once the seat of an Empire which extended across the Red Sea to Arabia and which traded with India and China, minted its own coinage, had its own alphabet and notational system, constructed great engineering works and dams and which was reckoned by the 4th century Persian historian Mani to be one of the four great powers of the Ancient World, alongside Persia, China and Rome. We will see the famed stelae / obelisks - the largest single pieces of stone anywhere in the world, the tombs and castles of kings, the Axum Museum and the Mariamtsion Church. We will stay overnight in the simple hill-top Yeha Hotel.

Today we will fly back to Addis Ababa for some souvenir shopping in the Mercato, Africa’s biggest market. We will have the use of day rooms at Jupiter International Hotel.

After a farewell dinner at Yod Abyssinia, transfer to the airport to check in for...

Ethiopian Airlines flight at 01h35 to London Heathrow, arriving at 08h15.