Day 1 Addis Ababa - half day city tour

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Early in the morning, it was time to leave home to go to Amsterdam. From here, I would travel to Ethiopia, and the Capital of Addis Ababa with a stop-over in Istanbul. Both travel days to reach and to leave Ethiopia, will not been included to my travel report and blog. The main reason I decided to do this, is that I want to split up my travels in Ethiopia in two parts. Also, I do not feel a travel day by arriving and leaving a country is substantial important subject to write in my travel report. Also, I decided to split up my travel review and travel blog in two parts about Ethiopia. This, due the huge difference in-between the North and the South. Addis Ababa is just on the “border” in between these areas and it is true the North is totally difference than the South. It does feel like another country, and I cannot compare those both regions in one travel blog and travel review. Currently, this blog post and this section does belong to my travel review of North Ethiopia.



At first, I will start my blogpost augmenting why I choose for Ethiopia as my new travel destination. As a small child, I was interested in Africa. I could spend hours watching wildlife docu’s about Africa, spending hours in the zoo at giraffe’s and Elephants. I never understand why, but the rest of the World did not have the same attraction as Africa. Before I was interested in Travelling, I knew that one day I would like to go on Safari in Africa. When I got interested in travelling, Africa was still on the bucketlist, but the budget was first a small issue. Two years ago, in 2014, I decided to go to Africa. I only knew that I would like to see the animals and the African culture, but I did not knew where to start. Travel Specialist, specialized in Africa, advised argument South-Africa, and I did the road trip from Cape Town to Johannesburg crossing the small countries of Lesotho and Swaziland as well. In this group, some travellers visited Ethiopia before and called it one of the best travel experience they had before in Africa and/or the world. This year, I searched for a total new experience and Africa still had me in attraction. However, I searched something that is still authentic and not all about wildlife. After sawing on the Dutch TV a program about travelling by car on horrible roads in the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia, and remembering the positive feedback from all travellers, I found my destination. However, I was just moved and spend a lot of budget at my new home. I did not knew if I was able to make it to go this year to Ethiopia. Some weeks later, on Facebook I found an discount campaign. Shoestring, a travel company has “weekknallers”, for several weeks they launch each week two trips in discount. The trips have just one certain date you can follow and each time they offer new destinations, in different lengths and different periods. One of these weeks, one of these trips was a 3 week trip to Ethiopia, including the North and the South, just bookable for one week. The next morning I stood in the office of my boss begging if he could approve my holiday. Because he is in travel as well, he could laugh about it and hours after, I booked this trip. The North of Ethiopia is totally different as the south. It does look like two different countries. The North has a very Christianity culture, churches, and mountains and highlands. Where the South is more Authentic, with ancient tribes and ancient cultures. In this trip, it was also able to book only the North of Ethiopia (13 days, including flights), or only the South (13 days, including flights). I decided to do both, just like the most of us. That would be 23 days, including flights.



I arrived in Addis Ababa in the night, so I did not saw much of the city when you arrive during your transfer to my hotel. Of course, you see something and lights, but it is different than during the day time. But it was a little bit a strange welcome, not negative, but I was a little bit surprised. Welcomed by the church, it seems. The Church does have influences from the Islam and the Islamite Rituals. That is not strange, because a lot of neighbour countries of Ethiopia does have a population of almost all Muslims, even centuries back. Ethiopia is, and was at that time, a country with mostly a Christian population. These Christian population did create their own style and religions subway (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), and they did integrate some Islamite Rituals. The praying, for example. I saw some people praying and it did remind me a little bit about how some Muslims are praying. But also, “the singing”, known in the Islam as “Azan” or “Adhan”. Which is the Islamic Call to Prayer. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, it is known as the Midnight Praying. Probably everyone knows the “Adhan”, Islamic Call to Prayer, calling or singing coming from the Mosque five times each day. However, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church this is almost identical, at least for strangers. It does sound identical, if you cannot understand the language. The “singing” is for the ones not into the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Chruch almost identical and it does remind you to the Adhan from the Islamic Mosque. But, in fact it is an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. And, it does start in the middle of the night and continues in the night. Depending on which church, it does start at 1 am, until 5 am or 6 am. However, it does not start at Friday. Fridays is an important day for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and on Fridays (and Wednesdays), it is not allowed to eat animal products. So, to go back to the story, I arrived in Addis Ababa, and I directly got welcomed in to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church rituals, as I could hear the Midnight Praying even slightly in my own hotel room. You are in a totally new country and city, it is dark and you did not have seen anything of it, and then you hearing in the middle of the night the Midnight Praying. It did feel a little bit strange, because the main question was: why was it at midnight? By that time, I did not had the information I had now, so I felt it a little bit strange it this Midnight Praying sound – was in the middle of the night. I first thought it was a Mosque, but I knew that Addis Ababa’s population consist mostly out of people which are Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church – followers. Even when it still continues for a long time, it does feel quite strange like “That is weird? What are they doing?”. I was not afraid, or anything like that, but it just felt a little bit strange. However, I had a – short – night sleep and was ready for the next day.



The next day, is in fact “day 1”, where we first had a briefing of our tour guide. We had a local guide known as Natnalel, or we could call him “Nattie”. A big plus is that Nattie speaks the language and knows a lot about the country. His services, through the country, together with his crew were great. He took a great care about us. In the morning, he held a briefing of our complete tour. Because it was also an option to do only the North or the South, this briefing went especially over the North. Nattie told us a lot about the country, and what we should do the next day. As an option, he suggested a half day city tour through Addis Ababa to start our trip good.



At 11 am, the half day city tour of Addis Ababa would start, and it would take until 4 pm. In this tour, we would get in touch with the city of the “New Flower”. “New Flower” is in fact the old translation of Addis Ababa. It is a big city, especially for Africa, even the fact that the city is quite young. She was officially founded in 1887. The city was founded by the Emperor Menelik II, which was king of the Shewa. He decided to abandon the capital of his Kingdom, to settle into the Entoto Hills. After setteling in the Entoto Hills, they moved down In 1886, they settled down of the Entoto hilltops in a area around the natural hot bath’s of Filwoha. Taitu, the wife of Emperor Menelik II, was directly in love with this place and she suggested to build a house for here at this place. She named the place “Addis Ababa”, what meant “New Flower”. Emperor Memelik II accepted this place and settled in 1887 in this area. The reason why he accepted this place, is that his grandfather made a prophecy that he would build a house in the valley below Entoto Hills and this house would grow into a very big city. But still, Mamelik II had his doubt about this place, and he changed his mind about changing the Capital and he started to relocate the capital, to a new site 50 km west of the Valley of Entoto. He named this site “Addis Alem”, or “New World”. The reason why Addis Ababa became the major capital and not Addis Alem was by the Eucalyptus Three species. No kidding. A stranger, planted some seeds of these the Eucalyptus three. This three is not part of the Africa naturally biodiversity, but part of the Australian biodiversity. It led to the fact that the three is behaving itself very aggressive in the area of Addis Alem, it ousted other vegetation belonging to this place. The firewood, used by the local people and by the people of Emperor Menelik II comes from the naturally vegetation, and therefore very important for the human survival. This vegetation was rare, and the Eucalyptus Three could not been used as replacement for the normal vegetation and therefore could not been used for human survival. However, this problem with the Eucalyptus three was only at the area of Addis Alem, and not in the area of Addis Ababa. Which means, around Addis Ababa, would be no problems to receive firewood for human survival. Therefore, Manelik II had no other options to relocate back to Addis Ababa and accept this city as the new capital of his Kingdom. Still nowadays, the capital is at south valley of the Entoto Hills, and the highest point of the city is around 2600m, and currently a population of around 5.000.000 citizens. The city is growing and it is expected that in the next 10 to 15 years, the population should grow to almost 15.000.000 citizens. The city is the Highest City in Africa, and the third highest city of the world. Only two cities, La Paz, capital of Bolivia, and Quito in Peru does have a higher attitude. The City is one of the most important cities in Economics and Politics in Africa, and especially East-Africa. Under the influence of Haile Selassie, the city grew especially in economics and politics. Haile Salassie worked hard to made Addis Ababa the capital of the Organisation of African Unity, nowadays, known as African Union. Addis Ababa is a strong, economical city, with many positions in trading, economics, industry and manufacturing. Another plus of the city of Addis Ababa is that it is a safe city, and for African standards it is clean. Hard crimes against citizens and tourist are almost not known. However, as tourist, you still should been warned about the many pick pocketing, scams and burglary. Tourist are easily scammed, due tricks of students or people, which want to suggest a restaurant, and then wants to have money. Sometimes they lure you to a restaurant, or coffee ceremony where suddenly coffee and food will be served, and afterwards a bill, which can go up to above $100. Pick pocketing is another trick, which also happened to someone of the group. Luckily, this group member was on time and could grab his wallet including his passport back. Young kids, which are pick pocketing with tricks by bumping into you and grab your arm, while another (young kid) is than pick pocketing you from the other side. In this case, the group member had luck that he felt the other kid picked the wallet out of his pockets. In this case, it is better to wear an money belt underneath your clothes, or even better to store big amounts of money and your passport in a locker in your hotel (room). So, let’s hide your personal stuff and go with me on the half day city trip! As said, at 11 the half day city tour would start. We would visit 4 attractions: the National Museum of Addis Ababa, Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces, Shiromeda Market & St. George Cathedral.



The National Museum of Addis Ababa: We met our bus driver, Minou, which drove us to the National Museum. Besides the museum, there is a restaurant called “Lucy”, a great place for having lunch and you can order salads safe. It can take a while preparing your meal, so the best option is to order you meal, visited the restaurant and come back. The Museum does have a small garden, and in those gardens you can see some funny animals, turtles! This museum is known for the fossil of “Lucy”. Lucy is a (sadly, half) fossil of the first ape-human species “Australopithecus afarensis”, living 3.2 million years ago. Lucy was found during an expedition of paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson in the Afar Traingle, near by the city of Hadar, East in Ethiopia. The fossil was named “Lucy”, due that night of the discovery the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was played. The sort of Lucy was one of the first human kinds ever found, where the skull still had the form of apes. However, the brain size of this species was increased as by normal apes. Also the species was the first which could walk and stand upright. However she was able to walk upright, researches think she fell to death out of a tree, ad a young adult age. The museum does have more fossils of the development from humans and animals. In a section, you can find the development of different African Wildlife, like Giraffes and Elephants, and also the development of apes and humans. Before visiting Lucy and the other fossils, you can go upstairs for visiting the art of the culture of Ethiopia. It is a plus to have a tour leader in the museum. Sadly, especially upstairs, a lot is not properly labelled, or just in Amharic. Upstairs, you can find a lot of Christian art, which you will encounter a lot in the North of Ethiopia. The art are paintings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. In a lot of Churches, you can see similar art, or similar stories from the bible which is used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church told. In the paintings, you can find similar personalities as the European Church. For example Mary, Jesus, Moses and the devil as well. Another personality which you can find a lot in The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, you can find not much in Europe is Saint George. Saint George is very important in the believes of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. I will explain about Saint George later on in this and later blogpost. The paintings have their own unique style. You can remember the story easily, but the kind of art is totally different. Where in the European culture the people are painting with much details and white skin, in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Curch, less details, popping colours and with a browner skin are painted. To see the details, please refer to my pictures of this blog, or at my other blogs. At the other side, you can find the art of South Ethiopia. The art is laying in the clothing and the jewellery, and tools of the tribes people. For example, the tools for hunting and cooking. Each tribe has its own clothing and jewellery art. To the eyes of tourist, some might be very corresponding, however, for the tribes itself the differences are huge. Most of these clothing are made by goat skin, the jewellery is made from wood, small stones or shells from the sea. From the sea? Ethiopia does not laying by the sea, you might thinking. That is true, but some tribes are trading animals, food and other belongings with tribes for Kenya in retuning the shells. The “South” part of the museum gives us a hint what to expect in the South. I have to put a note that a lot of these traditions and tools might not been in used, because a lot of tribes will live more western. More information about the south, you can find in the blogpost of my south. In total, you can visit the museum in 1 hour.



After the good lunch by the restaurant “Lucy”, we head to the Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces. In my introduction of Addis Ababa, I wrote about the Eucalyptus three. If you driving up to the Entoto Hills, you can see the damage and the Eucalyptus three growing. It is easy to find the difference between the normal vegetation and the Eucalyptus three. Currently, there are projects to remove the Eucalyptus Three outside this area, so that the normal vegetation can return. Entoto is the name of the mountain laying by Addis Ababa, so you have to travel up the mountain to visit the Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces. The Entoto Maryam Church is an old church, however, you are not allowed to go inside of the Church. It is still in use, every Sunday morning there is a church service for the local people. Most people, dressed in white will visit this Church for the service. Even then, it is not allowed to go inside the church. However, in the Lonely Planet it is written that, if you are visiting the Palaces and you standing close by the church, you might be lucky to see a small part of the inside of the Church from outside. The Entoto Maryam Church is close by the Palaces of the old Emperor. Here, we spotted a nice guard. The guard could not speak English, but he liked to be photographed. He ask a lot of people to take pictures of himself. He started to smile, look bright and found a good spot to been photographed. He liked to see the pictures about himself and would than again on the picture, by someone else. I really liked this man. The palaces are open and with Nattie as our guide, we had a small visit in the palaces. The palaces belong to the Emperor Manelik II. Not only he, but also the old Emperors lived in these Palaces. The palaces exist out of multiple houses, however they are empty. It is in an reasonable state. Therefore, it might be a little bit disappointing because you do not get a good idea about the living. Some pieces of the roof are still traditional. It is the first time I got in contact with this kind of roofs. You see these roofs more often in Ethiopia. From here, you can have a small walk, or ride to some great viewpoints. Also, at the place by the The Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces, you have a great sight on nature, and the city of Addis Ababa. But, you have to be lucky. There might be fog or dark, and therefore the city might be hard to see. It is difficult to photograph this point. However, we were lucky with bright sun and I did my best to make some good photographs. I am happy with the result of one picture. From here, you can walk to the market, but enjoy the life from the side of the road. People are carrying with wood. Horses and donkey’s carrying materials are walking up or downside of the mountain, surrounded by local people. Sometimes, you can find even some houses and you can see how the local people are living. You might be invited to make some pictures. You escape the busy, hectic city at this mountains and still been surrounded by the local life of the people. And you might be surrounded by tourists as well. In almost all tours, you find an excursion to the hills and the market (see below), so you probably are not alone at these point and meet other travellers. However, this road is often been driven by cars and trucks, so you still have to be a little carful.



If you walk down from the Entoto Hills, you might see that you walk slowly downwards and therefore back into the city. The traffic is increasing as well. You see some small stores and lot of people popping up. You are at the Shiromeda Market. The market is at both sides of the road. Here, you have to be careful for the traffic. A lot of cars and trucks are passing by, which want to go up the Entoto Hills, or coming down. There are small houses in the market or close by the market. Stores are popping up, than you see some houses, and then stores are popping up. There are small tiny roads, where neighbourhoods are formed. At the local market, you cannot spot only humans, but also chickens en goats walking freely. Most you can see fruit and vegetables for sale. Please be aware that a lot of people do not want to be photographed, or they want you to buy something if you take a picture of them or their store. The Shiromeda Market is also know for the traditional clothing and white dresses. The white dresses are traditional clothing for woman’s, sometimes decorated with small art. You can find these dresses in stores, which all seems standing beside each other. Just like the stores with vegetables and fruit are standing beside each other. Walking down at the Shiromeda Market gives you an impression of a market at Ethiopia, but I must say that I saw markets which are in my opinion more beautiful. This comes, that this market is split by the road. You have to watch out for the traffic, and a lot of people do not want to be photographed. You feel a sort of “distance” between you and the market. Probably because you are walking besides the road and not actually on a market. Normally, a market is a square, where you can walk (multiple) rounds. This market is only beside the road, it is not a square. The only way is up or down. For the first impression of Ethiopia, it is still a nice market to see how the local live in the city is going. Addis Ababa is a big city, a lot of people are living there and still moving there. Therefore, there are a lot of markets to been visit. The Saturday market should be the most beautiful and gives you really the “market” feeling. I did not visited this market. Still, the market as the Entoto Hills give you a good expression how the people are living on the edge of the city. Sadly, not much people do speak English. So it is hard to make contact. I never felt myself unsafe when I walked down this market. Much people are poor, but you do not have to be afraid. You might watch out for Pick pocketing.



Besides Churches, you also can find Cathedrals and monasteries. I will visit a lot of churches, but I also visited today one Cathedral, known as the Saint George Cathedral. You cannot enter each church, or you are not allowed to make pictures, however in this Cathedral, it is both allowed. I wrote a little bit about Saint George above. Saint George is a very known and important story in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. A lot of churches are named to Saint George. All churches or Cathedrals does have art from Saint George. Saint George is a very important personality for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Also at the Western Christianity, Saint George is one of the most important martyr. But not all churches does have art about him. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, he does play an important role. Therefore, you will find art from hem in each Church, Cathedral, monastery or small churches. In almost all art you see Saint George fighting with a dragon. Where the story is multiple painted in details in Europe, you see this story often painted in a totally Ethiopian style. Saint George, probably born in Cappadocia, Turkey, joined the Roman army as young as he could. Since birth he was a Christian. According the legend, known as the “Golden Legend”, Saint George killing a dragon in a small town known as “Silene” in Libya. The small town contained a small lake, where the dragon was based. The dragon poisoned the countryside and therefore harming the local people. The people of Silene did not saw other options then feed the dragon, twice a day a sheep. They encountered problems when they ran out of sheep. Via lottery, children where fed to the dragon. Until one day, the lottery turned out, that the daughter of the king should be feed. The king tried to prohibit the feed by offering the local people his wealth. The local people refused, dressed the daughter as a bride and brought her to the lake. At that moment, Saint George passed the lake. The princess told him to go, but Saint George did not agreed, and therefore he tried to make a long conversation as possible with the princess. During the conversation, the dragon came out of the lake. Saint George wounded the Dragon with his lace when sitting at his horse. He asked the princess to throw him her girdle, which he put around the neck of the dragon. Saint George asked the princess to go back in to the town and therefore he led the dragon in to the heart of the town. This action made the local people terrified. But Saint George told the people he was able to kill the dragon, however, he only would do so if the local people were willing to become Christians and perform the baptise. When the local people converted into Christians and where baptised, the dragon was killed by Saint George. A lot of churches in Ethiopia does have the name of Saint George. We visited the Saint George Cathedral in Addis Ababa. You have to pay entree fee (it was included in our group trip), and therefore you can ask for a guide. If you would like to have information about the paintings and the attributes of the Church, you always can ask a priest or a guide to help you. The paintings tell you a story, and after seeing a lot of these paintings you might find out what they tell you yourself, but the attributes is a different story. The Saint George Cathedral might be a little bit different with paintings. In a lot of churches, you only find traditional Ethiopian art. However, in the Saint George church, you might find European inspired art. The difference is the painting style. The European style does not work with so bright colours and does belong more details. And even all painters still have their own twist. The Ethiopian style have bright colours, less details and almost all paintings are identical in their style. A widely used attribute of the Ethiopian Churches is a drum. The drum has a big and a small side. With this drum, music is performed during the churches services and it included singing. However, the big and the small side does have an function. The big side is standing for the Old Testament, as the small side is for the New Testament. The Guide performed some traditional singing and drumming on this drum. The Saint George Cathedral is also known for its Stained Glass Windows. Where in European Churches Stained Glass is multiple used, it is very rare in Ethiopia. In Debre Markus I visited another Church which had also Stained Glass Windows and I will talk about these Windows in the next blogpost. You can also find mantles and hand crosses of the priest in this church. Sadly, as in this Cathedral, as in other churches it is not allowed to make pictures of these crosses or mantles. I do have some in my blogpost about Lalibela, for more information about the crosses or the mantles, refer to my blogpost about Lalibela.



Arrived at the hotel, a wedding took place. Wedding ceremonies, especially in the south are totally difference than in Europe. However, the Western ceremonies about wedding are also reaching Ethiopia. We could make some small pictures of the bride and the groom when they walked to the restaurant. Because the hotel restaurant was closed, due the wedding, some of the group and I tried to find another restaurant. And here we got scammed. I tell you how, and it often a lot in Ethiopia. Be careful. Around the hotels, there are some restaurants. A young man, a student, told us when we would like to enter one restaurant “do not go inside this restaurant, they have bad food”. He suggested another restaurant, which was just some meters walking. He did not only suggest us, and found a table for us. The menu card was half in English, and we would like traditional food. He explained us everything on the card. As you encounter much in Ethiopia, they do not have everything in stock. The young man told us what the restaurant had in stock. Together with the man, we ordered our food. Then, he would not leave. He did not accept a drink, but only would like money. After some negation, we decided him to pay, around 2 euro pro person, it was the lowest we could go. Otherwise he would not leave us. And the meal at this restaurant, it was not good. The best way what you could do is asking by the hotel for a good restaurant, order a taxi and go there.





The next day, it was time to go to the north. I would travel to Debre Markus and made a stop by Debre Libanos, before going to the hotel of Debre Markus. From here, I would go further north to go to Lake Tana where we might spot hippo’s? Heading a little bit to the West to Gondor and travel from here in to the Simien Mountains searching for the Gelada Baboons. From here I would go to Lalibela to visit the 12 Churches and then head back to Addis Ababa for the south part of the trip. You can read this in the next blogposts.

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Photos

A Priest in Lalibela
A Priest in Lalibela. See blog: Lalibela.

The National Museum of Addis Ababa
Lucy is the first ape-human that was found. Her fossil is to be found in the National Museum of Addis Ababa.

The National Museum of Addis Ababa
This is an under jaw of a hippo.

The National Museum of Addis Ababa
It is hard to see, but this is Saint George slaying the dragon and save the princess.

The National Museum of Addis Ababa
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church does know the Lady Mary and of course Jesus.

The National Museum in Addis Adeba
The art of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Chruch is colorful with bright colors.

National Museum Addis Ababa
There is a small section where you can see personal belongings of the old Emperors of Ethiopia. This weapons belong to Emperor Tewodros II.

The Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces
Nearby the Palaces there is a Church, but it is not open for visit, but the Church is still in use.

The Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces
The palances are open for visiters.

The Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces
Here, you can see the structures from the roof of one of those palaces.

The Entoto Maryam Church & Palaces
This man is a guardian, and he really liked to be photographed. He was very happy with the result of this photo when I showed him from the screen of my camera.

Entoto Hills
From the Entoto HIlls, you have a good view in nature, slopes and the city of Addis Ababa.

Entoto Hills
the Entoto Hills and the Entoto National Park, is one of the highest Hills from Addis Ababa.

Entoto Hills
In the area of the Entoto Hills, local people live in small houses.

Shiromeda Market
The market is at the side of the road, the same road which brings you up to the Entoto Hill.

Shiromeda Market
Besides humans, you can find also chickens and other animals.

Shiromeda Market
You can find a lot of food and fruit at the Shiromeda Market. The shops almost seems to standing besides each other.

Shiromeda Market
At the side of the road and the market, there is a lot of traffic. However, carrying stuff and walking on feet stays the best method for trafic.

Shiromeda Market
In between the market, you can find some neighborhoods and houses. Sheep's and goats are walking freely around the houses.

Shiromeda Market
if you are searching for a traditional woman's dress? You can find it here.

St. George Cathedral (Addis Ababa)
St. George is an very important character in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Many Churches and Cathedrals are named to St. George.

St. George Cathedral (Addis Ababa)
As you can see, it is quite dark in the Churches.

St. George Cathedral (Addis Ababa)
In the St. George Cathedral, you also find European inspired art.

St. George Cathedral (Addis Ababa)
You might ask, what is the difference bewteen the European Art and the Ethiopian Traditional Art. In this picture, I will show you the difference.

St. George Cathedral (Addis Ababa)
The Guide of the St. George Cathedral is showing a drum, which is used during Church services.

Wedding at front of my hotel
Do they not look nice?