---
type: Place
title: Asmara
description: Eritrea's art deco capital, frozen in Italian colonial time — vintage cafés, pizzerias, the Medebar market, and a Soviet tank graveyard.
tags: [asmara, eritrea, africa, art-deco, market]
coordinates: {lat: 15.3390, lng: 38.9327}
timestamp: 2026-07-12T12:00:00Z
---

# Asmara

Capital of [Eritrea](/countries/eritrea.md), a highland city of 600,000 to
a million people (from video – unverified) that Harry describes as frozen
in time: Italian art deco architecture (the Fiat Tagliero petrol station is
the signature landmark), vintage Fiats, grand cinema-cafés, gelato shops,
and pizzerias on every corner. Remarkably quiet, clean, and calm — locals
call it the safest city in Africa, and Harry, on his fifteenth African
country, agrees it feels like nowhere else on the continent.

## What Harry did

Stayed at the Crystal Hotel ($60 a night, one of the country's rare wi-fi
spots), rented bikes from a former Olympic-family cyclist, left them barely
locked outside the Medebar market and found them untouched, wandered the
market's chili stalls and from-scratch metal workshops, talked with
schoolkids and an eloquent shoe cleaner, toured the permit-only tank
graveyard of Soviet tanks from the Ethiopian war, ate a mediocre "ziggney"
pizza while a wedding band played, bought the national football shirt from
a five-language shopkeeper, fought the internet café and lost, and finished
with $1 draft beers among peaceful Premier League fans.

## Practical facts

- Airport taxi into town: $20 (from video – unverified); immigration can
  take a couple of hours.
- Crystal Hotel: $60 a night, clean, no air-con, working wi-fi — a rarity.
- Bike rental: 200 nakfa per day.
- Internet café: 15 nakfa an hour, but speeds are near-unusable and most
  services need a VPN; expect to go offline for your stay.
- Large pizza: 160 nakfa, around $8–10 (from video – unverified); draft
  beer about $1 a pint; football shirt 200 nakfa.
- Only carbonated water is sold — no still bottled water in the country.
- The tank graveyard requires a permit, arranged through a tour guide.
- Filming is restricted in some venues (a sports hall turned Harry away) —
  government rules apply even where the street feels relaxed.
- Bars don't serve beer before 7pm in some establishments.

## Harry's tips

- Do the tank graveyard — one of the top sights, but sort the permit via a
  guide in advance (see
  [travel with a local guide](/tips/travel-with-a-local-guide.md)).
- Rent a bike; it's the national sport's home turf and the streets are
  calm.
- Come mentally prepared for no internet — treat it as a digital detox.
- Eat the pizza and coffee, but ask locals for the best pizzeria rather
  than picking at random.
- Visit Medebar market on a weekday morning when the workshops are in full
  swing.

## Source

- [Tourists Don't Visit this Secretive African Dictatorship 🇪🇷](/videos/b7uIyBvDGAI.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7uIyBvDGAI