Things to Do in Antananarivo, Madagascar

Quick facts: His Malagasy name literally means "the place where the wind rules" and perfectly reflects its position on an exposed hill. The last reigning queen left her wedding dress, gloves and photographs in these rooms, where they still lie to this day just as she left them.

Highlights: The greatest secret is the personal photo albums, which visitors can leaf through with their own hands, and a room tidied as if the queen had just stepped out of it. From the balcony you look out over the gentle hills where the last ruler walked before French troops sent her into exile in 1896.

Quick facts: On a plot of just a few hectares, around 80 species of Madagascan animals live here, from royally blue chameleons through fossas to the largest lemur, the indri. The botanical part of the park hides a herbarium with about 80 thousand plant specimens documenting the island flora, roughly seventy percent of which exists nowhere else.

Highlights: The aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur with a long, spider-like finger, hunts for grubs by tapping on bark right in front of visitors' eyes, even though back home in the rainforest people consider it a bad omen. Toward evening, the unmistakable song of the indri rings out, its echo spreading across the quieting park and evoking in the soul the atmosphere of distant rainforests.

Quick facts: Vanilla from the east coast plantations, which the stalls here offer, covers about 80% of the world's natural production. Roughly 300 merchants sell spices, vegetables, raffia fabrics and wooden carvings here, and every price can be bargained down by up to half.

Highlights: In the side passage, a vanilla auction takes place every morning, where the price per gram rises within one minute and the winner pays cash on the spot. Bags of vanilla are placed on a large metal scale, and the air smells so strongly of sweet vanilla that your head spins.

Quick facts: Soft light filters through over 24 colorful stained glass windows, tracing patterns on the stone floors that change with every hour; Sunday masses are held here in both French and Malagasy. The neo-Gothic structure of pale tuff stands on a hilltop above the city, and from its 35-meter tower you can see the entire metropolis.

Highlights: Since 1989 the church has kept the relics of the blessed Victoire Rasoamanarivo; her modest grave lies right by the side altar beneath a baobab wood sculpture. During Sunday mass the a cappella choir sings psalms in Malagasy, and the sound of the valiha carries out to the neighboring streets.

Quick facts: Over 22,000 fans fit in the stands, and at big concerts a standing crowd joins them out on the pitch. The home national football team Baréa plays its matches here, and the stadium also hosts big concerts and political rallies.

Highlights: The south section holds the loudest bunch of fans, who drum and dance nonstop through the whole match. When the home team scores a goal, yellow smoke rises above the stands and the whole arena immediately sings the same chant.

Quick facts: In the middle of the water surface stands a three-tier fountain from 1930, which lights up with colorful spotlights after dark. A flock of several dozen ducks and swans lives here all year round and swims up to strollers for crumbs.

Highlights: The colorful reflections of the three-tier fountain drift across the water surface in the evening, and on a windless night falling droplets reflect the palace light like thousands of small coins. You will find the fewest people here at dawn, when a pair of swans has the water all to themselves and only the crunch of gravel underfoot comes from the garden.

Quick facts: On just five hectares of forest live about 90 lemurs representing nine species, from snow-white sifakas to red ruffed lemurs. The botanical zone comprises over 400 endemic plant species, and every guest first completes a short training session before stepping among the animals.

Highlights: Instead of cages there is an open forest where more than 90 individuals leap freely, and white sifakas can cover five meters in a single jump right above your head. Most of the residents come from the hands of smugglers, which is why the guides know every lemur by name, history, and favorite treats.

Quick facts: Annual attendance reaches about 30,000 visitors, and the walls feature more than 40 names of Malagasy artists, from young debutants to established masters. Nearly half of the exhibited canvases find buyers even before the official opening of the exhibition.

Highlights: The most electrifying are the openings, during which artists paint live to the sounds of the valiha, a traditional Malagasy zither. Several hundred guests watch in a single hall as a canvas goes from an empty frame to a finished painting in the course of one evening.