Qualla: Asmara https://qualla.com/asmara en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Asmara https://qualla.com/asmara Asmara: Introduction https://qualla.com/asmara/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In the 1930s, Benito Mussolini decided Asmara would be the laboratory of his second Roman Empire. Italian architects were given money, time, and an almost complete absence of limits. What they built in the highlands of what is now Eritrea was their fantasy - futurist filling stations shaped like aeroplanes, cubist cinemas, Art Deco bowling alleys, basilicas that borrowed from ancient Rome. Then the empire collapsed. The architects went home. The Eritreans stayed, and kept the buildings, and made the city theirs.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/sfex-asmara-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Asmara: The City Mussolini Built, the City Eritrea Kept https://qualla.com/asmara/ Photo credit sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0. Harnet Avenue - known locally as Kombishtato, a creole of the Italian Campo Cintato - is a palm-lined mile of cafes, bars, shops, and old cinemas, and it would not look entirely out of place in Milan. The Fiat Tagliero service station was built in 1938 in the shape of an aircraft...

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Image: sailko | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/sfex-asmara-the-city-mussolini-built-the-city-eritrea-kept.mp3 0:06 2 full Asmara: Two Centuries Without Self-Rule https://qualla.com/asmara/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 1.0. Founded in the twelfth century when four clan villages united to protect themselves from bandits, Asmara - the name comes from the Tigrinya for those who unite - grew under successive outside rulers. The Italians arrived in the late nineteenth century and made it their colonial c...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/sfex-asmara-two-centuries-without-self-rule.mp3 0:06 3 full Asmara: Above the Clouds https://qualla.com/asmara/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Asmara sits at 2,300 metres. The air is thin and dry, and temperatures rarely rise above a comfortable 30 degrees Celsius even at midday; between December and February, nights can drop below zero. From the terrace of the Nyala Hotel, the city falls away toward the Red Sea escarpm...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/sfex-asmara-above-the-clouds.mp3 0:06 4 full Asmara: The Quiet Capital https://qualla.com/asmara/ Photo credit Lucia Tarantola, CC BY-SA 2.0. Power is intermittent. Electricity runs reliably in the centre for parts of the day, with blackouts common - especially in the rainy season. Internet is slow. A traveller's permit is required to leave the city in any direction, and military roadblocks called blocco still dot the ...

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Image: Lucia Tarantola | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/sfex-asmara-the-quiet-capital.mp3 0:06 5 full Asmara: A Horn of Africa Crossroads https://qualla.com/asmara/ Photo credit Sailko, CC BY 3.0. Asmara rises from a highland plateau that drops sharply to the Red Sea coast. The narrow-gauge railway built by the Italians between Asmara and Massawa still climbs the escarpment, pulled by a steam engine now used mainly for chartered tours. The country's second city, Keren, lie...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/e/x/asmara-wk/sfex-asmara-a-horn-of-africa-crossroads.mp3 0:06 6 full