Lake Tana Island Monasteries and Adjacent Wetland

Lake Tana suddenly popped up on Ethiopia’s Tentative List earlier this year as a mixed nomination. It’s a site well on the country’s tourist trail and I visited it in 2003. I stayed in the small lakeside town of Bahar Dar, which had a few boulevard-like roads and very little else. I’ll share some parts of my travel diary from my days there, and would be interested to read a more recent review as well.

Lake Tana is the largest lake in the country and is known for its islets with ancient Orthodox churches. Most of them are only accessible to men. That's why I went to the Zege Peninsula, where I entered the Debre Maryam Church. Zege turned out to be a hilly area where a lot of coffee is grown. A forest path leads to the church. But first, there was the 'museum': it holds a number of crowns that were donated to the church by Ethiopian kings. The funny thing about this museum was that you are not allowed in – the only thing of interest you get to see through a window.

A little further lies the church itself. Beforehand I had all kinds of images in my head: I had just been to Thessaloniki and expected the Ethiopian Orthodox churches to look something like the Greek ones. But that is certainly not true on the outside. This church is a large circular building with an iron roof, topped by a round symbol. It …