Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Looking down from the plane window as you approach Antananarivo, you can see how excitingly different this country is.
Clusters of red clay houses and steepled churches stand isolated on the hilltops overlooking a mosaic of green and brown paddy fields.
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Old defence ditches, tamboho, form circles around villages or estates, and dotted in the empty countryside are the white concrete Merina tombs from where the dead will be exhumed in famadihana ceremonies.
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Most people stay only a day or so in Tana (as Antananarivo is often called), but there is plenty to see in the city and the surrounding hauts plateaux.
A week would not be too long to experience the cultural, historical and natural sites which lie within a day's excursion from the capital.
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
The Kingdom of Imerina thrived for over a century before French colonisation, so it is here that the rich and fascinating history and culture of the Merina people are best appreciated.
From the right place, in the right light, Tana is one of the most attractive capitals in the developing world.
In the evening sunshine it has the quality of a child's picture book: brightly coloured houses stackled up the hillsides with mauve jacarandas and purple bouganvillae against the dark blue of the winter sky.
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Red crown-of-thorns euphorbias stand in rows against red clay walls , rice paddies are tended right up to the edge of the city, clothes are laid out on canal bancks to dry, and zebu carts rumble along the roads on the outskirts of town.
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The geography of the city is both simple and confusing.
It is built on two ridges which meet in a "V".
On the highest hill, dominating all the viewpoints, is the Queen's palace of Rova.
Down the central valley runs a broad boulevard, Avenue de l'Indépendance, which terminates at the railway station, now beautifully restored as a small shopping precinct.
It narrows at the other end to become Rue du 26 Juin.
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
To escape from this valley means climbing steps if you are on foot, or driving through a tunnel if you are in a vehicle.
It is convenient to divide Tana into the two main areas most often wandered by visitors: Avenue de l'Indépendance and the side streets to its southwest (districts Analakely and Tsaralalana, or the Lower Town) and the smarter area at the top of the steps leading up from Rue du 26 Juin (districts Antaninarenina and Isoraka or the Upper Town).
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Of course there are lots of other districts but most tourists will take taxis to this rather than going on foot.
This can be a challenging city to explore; streets are often unnamed, or change name several times within a few hundred metres, or go by two different names.
When reading street names it's worth knowing that lalana means street, arabe is avenue and kianja is square.
Questa foto di Antananarivo è offerta da TripAdvisor.
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