Harnet Avenue, the Three Faiths and Medeber Recycling Market

While Fiat Tagliero and the Art Deco cinemas showcase Asmara's modernist ambition, the social and spiritual heart of the capital beats along Harnet Avenue (Liberation Avenue) and the busy market quarters immediately north and east of it. Within a gentle twenty-minute walk, you pass the three principal sanctuaries of the city before entering one of Africa's most resourceful craft markets.

Harnet Avenue and the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary

Stretching east to west through the centre of town with a double row of palm trees down its median, Harnet Avenue (known during the Italian period as Viale Mussolini and later Haile Selassie Avenue) is where Asmara gathers to walk, shop and drink coffee. At its midpoint stands the red-brick Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary (1923), designed by Milanese architect Oreste Scanavini in Lombard-Romanesque style. Ask the caretaker to unlock the door to the 52-metre gothic-revival bell tower (campanile), whose eight bells were cast from melted-down Austrian cannons captured during the First World War; the balcony at the top offers the finest 360-degree view over Asmara's grid.

The Triangle of Faiths: Al Khulafa Al Rashiudin Mosque and Enda Mariam

Walk two blocks north-east down Peace Street into the open plaza fronting the Al Khulafa Al Rashiudin Mosque (1938). Designed by Guido Ferrazza, the Great Mosque blends Islamic architectural traditions with Rationalist proportions: a tall fluted minaret and glass-inlaid dome rise above an outdoor prayer courtyard paved in geometric black-and-white stone patterns and framed by two-tiered arcades of Dekemhare travertine and Carrara marble.

Continue four hundred metres further east down Mata'a Street to complete the religious triangle at Enda Mariam Orthodox Cathedral. Rebuilt in 1938 by Ernesto Gallo over an older highland Tigrinya church and expanded in the 1960s, its striking brick-and-stone facade features twin square towers topped by conical lantern roofs that echo traditional highland hidmo homes, framing colourful exterior mosaics of archangels and saints. Inside the compound hang giant ceremonial sounding stones (dewel) struck with pebbles to call the faithful.

The Central Market and Medeber Open-Air Recycling Market

Between the Great Mosque and Enda Mariam spreads the covered Central Market, filled with fragrant berbere spice mounds, grain sacks and textiles. Ten minutes' walk north-east brings you to the extraordinary Medeber Market, a former caravanserai turned open-air recycling cooperative. Inside its walled alleys, blacksmiths, tinsmiths and cobblers turn shipping containers, corrugated iron, tin cans and old car tyres into gleaming charcoal braziers, coffee pans, buckets and sandals without wasting a gram of metal. Finish your walk with a coffee along Harnet Avenue.