Addis Ababa to Gondar, Ethiopia
Fasil Ghebbi (and more)
Once safely on the ground in Gondar and checked into my hotel, we headed to Fasil Ghebbi (the Gondar castle grounds). We picked up a local guide (Darara (sp?)) who was extremely knowledgeable about the area and a great communicator. He served as my guide for much of the day and he was a blast.
My companion (Darara) for a good part of the day.
Fasil Ghebbi is undergoing a major restoration (term used loosely) so the normal walking tour was unavailable. We actually started with one of the youngest structures on the grounds – the palace of Queen Mentewab – and worked our way backward in time. The site is quite large and, in the interest of time, I’m going to skip the structure by structure narrative and go straight to a photo dump. The photos are generally in the order I saw them. Most of the remaining structures were captured in one or more photos. If you click on a photo and then hover over it, any additional text I've added will be visible.
After leaving Fasil Ghebbi, we headed to the17th century church Debre Birhan Selassie. This is the only church to be spared during the war with Mahdist Sudan in the late 1800’s. There is some uncertainty around why this church was spared when the remainder were all destroyed. One favorite story is that God (the Christian one, not the Mahdi one) sent a swarm of bees to chase off the invaders trying to set the church on fire.
It is an interesting site and, after my guide assured me that I wouldn’t be struck by lightning upon entering, we headed inside. A few photos - my apologies for how dark they are. Paintings were all done on cloth and then glued to the walls. And I believe they are all original.
After leaving the church, we headed to a final site – the royal pool (not sure that is the real name but…). When the royal family wasn’t in attendance, the common folk were allowed to use the pool as well. And on certain religious days, this is a huge event with 10’s of thousands coming to be blessed and take a dip. The pool is gravity feed from a local river and would exit to the same river.
