Best Things to Do in Antananarivo

Too many travellers treat Antananarivo merely as an overnight transit stop between international flights and the national parks, missing a highland capital rich in royal Merina architecture, busy craft markets and accessible wildlife sanctuaries. Group your sightseeing between the ridge-top palaces, the valley markets and the countryside hills just outside town.

1. Walk the ramparts of the Rova of Antananarivo (Anatirova). Perched on the highest point of Analamanga hill, this fortified royal complex houses the stone-arcaded Manjakamiadana (Queen's Palace), the dark timber Tranovola palace, royal tombs and a 360-degree panorama over the red roofs and rice plains of the Central Highlands.
2. Explore the UNESCO-listed Royal Hill of Ambohimanga. Drive 24 kilometres north through terraced rice valleys to the spiritual cradle of the Merina Kingdom, where a huge circular stone gate cut into massive fortified walls protects a 17th-century rosewood king's cabin, queen's summer pavilions and native primary forest.
3. Watch free-ranging sifakas and ring-tailed lemurs at Lemurs' Park. Set along the Katsaoka River 22 kilometres south-west of the city, this botanical reserve lets you walk on open paths beside Coquerel's sifakas, crowned lemurs, black-and-white ruffed lemurs and radiating tortoises.
4. Stroll down Avenue de l'Indépendance to Analakely Market. Follow the two-storey red-brick colonial arcades from the historic Soarano Railway Station into the stone pavilions of Analakely, browsing woven raffia baskets, wild Madagascar pepper and carved rosewood.
5. Photograph the Museum of Photography of Madagascar (Musée de la Photographie). Set in a restored 19th-century mayor's residence in Anjohy with a leafy garden café, this thoughtfully curated museum brings pre-colonial and early-20th-century Malagasy life into sharp focus through glass-plate negatives.
6. Circle heart-shaped Lake Anosy in jacaranda season. Built in the 1830s with a winged angel monument on its central island, Lake Anosy mirrors the skyline of Haute-Ville and turns a vivid violet canopy when its shoreline jacaranda trees bloom in October and November.
7. Spot rare wetland birds at Parc Tsarasaotra (Lac Alarobia). Recognised as the smallest Ramsar wetland site on earth, this private bird sanctuary inside northern Tana shelters endangered Madagascar pond herons, white-faced whistling ducks and Meller's ducks.
8. Climb the stone staircases of Faravohitra and Andohalo. Trace the 19th-century brick churches built along the cliffs where early Christian martyrs were remembered, passing the timbered pink barriers of Andafiavaratra Palace.
9. Shop for hand-embroidered linens and lamba silk at La Digue Artisan Market. On the road toward Ivato Airport, rows of fixed stalls sell hand-woven wild silk lamba shawls, zebu-horn spoons, inlaid marquetry boxes and baobab wood carvings.
10. Taste slow-cooked zebu romazava and Sambirano craft chocolate. Sit down at a hillside terrace in Isoraka or Haute-Ville for highland beef broth with brèdes mafana greens followed by award-winning dark chocolate made from northern Malagasy cacao.