National Museum (Lucy), Ethnological Museum and Holy Trinity

Running north along King George VI Street from Arat Kilo through Amist Kilo (Fifth Kilometre) to Sidist Kilo (Sixth Kilometre), Addis Ababa's historic university and cathedral corridor holds the three most important indoor cultural sights in Ethiopia, all within a twenty-minute walk of one another.

The National Museum of Ethiopia: Lucy (Dinkinesh), Selam and Ardi

Set in leafy gardens at Amist Kilo, the National Museum of Ethiopia is world-renowned for its subterranean palaeoanthropology gallery, which proves why Ethiopia's Afar Rift and Omo Valley are celebrated as the Cradle of Humankind. At the centre of the display rests the cast of Lucy, known in Amharic as Dinkinesh ("You are marvellous"), the 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis partial skeleton discovered at Hadar in 1974 by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray (the fragile original bones are preserved in the museum's secure vault upstairs). Alongside Lucy, examine the 3.3-million-year-old infant skeleton Selam ("Lucy's Child"), the 4.4-million-year-old Ardi (Ardipithecus ramidus), and fossilised skulls of early Homo sapiens (Omo I and Herto Man).

On the upper floors, trace the pre-Christian Sabaean and Aksumite civilisations through stone inscriptions, oil lamps and royal thrones, then view imperial regalia, crowns and ceremonial capes of Emperors Menelik II and Haile Selassie alongside monumental canvases by modern Ethiopian painters including Afewerk Tekle.

The Ethnological Museum inside Guenete Leul Palace

Walk fifteen minutes uphill to the main Sidist Kilo campus of Addis Ababa University and pass through the stone gates into the former Guenete Leul ("Princely Paradise") Palace, built in 1930 for Emperor Haile Selassie and gifted by him to the university in the 1960s. Curated by the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, the Ethnological Museum is widely considered the finest museum in East Africa. The first floor walks you through the human life cycle (birth, childhood games, rites of passage, marriage, nomadism, craftsmanship and burial markers) across Ethiopia's more than eighty ethnic groups. Upstairs, you step directly into Emperor Haile Selassie's preserved royal bedroom, dressing room and bathroom (complete with a bullet hole in the mirror from the 1960 coup attempt), followed by a dazzling hall of Orthodox processional crosses in Axumite, Lalibela and Gondarine styles and colourful winged wooden icons.

Holy Trinity Cathedral (Kidist Selassie) and Piazza

South-east near Arat Kilo stands Holy Trinity Cathedral, built to commemorate Ethiopia's liberation in 1941. Slip off your shoes to enter the nave beneath magnificent stained-glass windows by Afewerk Tekle; in the north transept stand the massive carved Aksumite-style granite tombs of Emperor Haile Selassie and Empress Menen Asfaw, while the churchyard holds the grave of British suffragette and anti-fascist campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst and a small museum of imperial crowns and manuscripts. Afterwards, continue west to historic Piazza and St George's Cathedral (1896) before exploring Unity Park or enjoying a coffee ceremony.