Two brightly painted rickshaws on a wide sunlit street lined with pastel colonial buildings

Antananarivo & the Central Highlands, Madagascar

Antsirabe

Pousse-pousse rickshaws waiting on Jean Ralaimongo avenue in central Antsirabe. (Bernard Gagnon / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0)

A highland town about 170 kilometres south of Antananarivo on the RN7, standing at roughly 1,500 metres among volcanic hills. A Norwegian missionary founded it in 1872 as a cool-climate hill station, and under French rule its thermal springs became a spa; today it is a town of wide avenues, colonial villas, gemstone and horn workshops, dairies and brewing, and thousands of hand-pulled and pedalled rickshaws.

Neighbourhoods

  • The avenue and town centre
    • First-time visitors
    • Historic district
    • Close to transport

    The long, wide central avenue running from the railway station past shops, banks and the market, with pastel-fronted colonial buildings on either side and rickshaws drawn up along the kerbs. Most of the town's hotels, workshops and restaurants are within a few streets of it.

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  • The thermal quarter
    • Quiet and residential
    • Parks

    The leafy district laid out around the springs and the old spa buildings, with large villas, gardens and the town's grandest hotel frontage. It is the calmest part of Antsirabe and a short walk from the centre.

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  • Around the market and the workshops
    • Markets
    • Crafts
    • Local life

    The busy quarters behind the main avenue, where the produce market, small lapidary and zebu-horn workshops, tailors and hardware stalls trade side by side. Loud, crowded and the best place to see how the town earns its living.

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  • The lake road and the outskirts
    • Cycling
    • Views

    The roads running west and south out of town towards Lake Andraikiba and the rice terraces, past dairies, brickworks and paddies, with the Ankaratra hills on the skyline. Popular for walks and bicycle rides.

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Things to do

In the town

  • Pousse-pousse and cyclo-pousse rickshawsattraction

    The hand-pulled and pedalled rickshaws that are the town's emblem, some 5,600 of them counted in 2006, still everyday transport in Antsirabe alongside small buses, tuk-tuks and taxis.

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  • The thermal springs and spa quarterattraction

    The hot mineral springs behind the town's nicknames, Ville d'eau and the Malagasy Vichy, developed as a thermal bath centre that opened in 1917.

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  • Hôtel des Thermes frontagelandmark

    The spa hotel of 1922, one of the early twentieth-century buildings that give central Antsirabe its character.

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  • Antsirabe railway stationtransit hub

    The station of 1923 at the end of the railway line from Antananarivo, which today carries only freight trains.

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  • Gemstone and zebu-horn workshopsattraction

    Small lapidary and carving workshops in the streets behind the market, cutting semi-precious stones from the surrounding hills and working cattle horn into spoons and cutlery.

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  • Antsirabe marketmarket

    The town's two public markets, the small Antsenakely and the larger Asabotsy, supplied by the vegetable, fruit and dairy farms of the surrounding plateau.

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Lakes and country around the town

  • Lake Andraikibapark

    A lake of volcanic origin about 7 kilometres from Antsirabe, one of several water-filled craters around the town.

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  • Lake Tritrivapark

    Madagascar's deepest lake, up to 160 metres, filling an extinct volcanic crater about 15 kilometres south-west, its surface some 50 metres below the rim; a strict fady forbids swimming.

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  • Betafoattraction

    A typical Merina highland town about 22 kilometres west, surrounded by volcanic peaks and irrigated rice paddies placed on UNESCO's Tentative List in 1997, with the Antafofo Falls nearby.

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Short trips from the town

  • Ankaratra massiftrail

    A cinder-cone volcanic range to the north of the town, rising to 2,644 metres at Mount Tsiafajavona, whose last traces of activity feed the hot springs around Antsirabe.

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Seasonal events

  • Independence DayJune

    The 26 June national holiday, marking independence in 1960; the Stele of Independence stands on the town's Independence Avenue.

  • Famadihana seasonVaries

    Highland families hold the turning of the bones, usually once every five to seven years, rewrapping ancestors in fresh silk shrouds and dancing with them before reburial; it is a family celebration of kinship rather than a public event.

Eat and drink

Long-standing places and food districts in Antsirabe. Hours, ratings and directions come from your maps app, always current.

Antsirabe classics

  • Highland hotely canteensrestaurant

    Simple eating houses along and behind the main avenue serving rice with a laoka — romazava, ravitoto with pork, or beans — at a fixed low price.

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  • Dairy products and yoghurtmarket

    Milk, yoghurt and cheese from the dairy farms of the surrounding plateau, sold in shops and stalls across Antsirabe.

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  • Three Horses Beermarket

    The national beer, brewed in Antsirabe since the 1950s by Star Breweries, whose other plant is at Antsiranana, and drunk all over the island.

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Markets and street food

  • Antsirabe marketmarket

    Highland vegetables, fruit, rice and zebu meat, with stalls frying sambos and grilling masikita skewers around the edges.

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  • Mofo gasy stallsmarket

    Sweetened rice-flour cakes cooked in charcoal moulds at dawn on street corners, eaten with hot ranovola before work.

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Experience Antsirabe

History

Antsirabe means the place of much salt. The area belonged to the Kingdom of Andrantsay, a farming region of rice, vegetables and fruit, until it was absorbed into Imerina in the early 1800s. Norwegian Lutheran missionaries arrived in 1868, and the town was founded in 1872 by the missionary T. G. Rosaas as a hill station and retreat for its much cooler climate; in 1886 the mission added a leper hospital.

Under French rule the centre of the Vakinankaratra region shifted to Antsirabe, and the springs were developed as a spa: the thermal baths opened in 1917 and the Hôtel des Thermes in 1922, earning the town the nickname of the Malagasy Vichy that is still repeated. The railway from Antananarivo reached the town, whose station dates from 1923, and a residence for French retirees followed in 1934. In 1921 the town became the seat of a Catholic apostolic vicariate, raised to a bishopric in 1955.

Industry followed. A brewery founded in 1947, food and textile mills, and tobacco and grain plants made the town one of the few manufacturing centres outside the capital, while the surrounding hills supplied semi-precious stones to a growing trade in cut gems. The passenger railway declined and the RN7 took its traffic, but the town kept its role as the market and workshop of the southern highlands, and its rickshaws multiplied as the population grew, to some 5,600 by 2006.

Culture & Customs

This is Merina country, and the customs of the plateau are strongly kept: kabary oratory at weddings and funerals, hira gasy troupes performing long programmes of song, dance and moral argument, and the famadihana, when families bring out their ancestors in the dry season to rewrap them in fresh silk shrouds. Family tombs of stone and concrete stand among the paddies around the town, often more carefully built than the houses.

Antsirabe's own identity is made of work and craft. The town is known across Madagascar for its unusually high concentration of pousse-pousse, and for its lapidaries, horn carvers and other small craft workshops, where bargaining is expected but conducted politely.

Protestant and Catholic churches, a legacy of the Norwegian mission and of French Catholicism, are full on Sundays, and choral singing is a serious local art. The town is known for its cool climate and a slower pace than the capital. The Malagasy Lutheran Church, heir to the Norwegian mission, has a strong presence, and mosques serve the town's Muslim minority.

Daily Life

About 265,000 people were counted in Antsirabe in 2014, which makes it the third-largest city in Madagascar. The centre is a grid of wide avenues; around it spread quarters of brick houses with balconies and tiled roofs, and beyond them rice paddies, vegetable plots and dairy pasture that reach right up to the last streets.

The economy is unusually varied for a Malagasy town: brewing, dairy processing, textiles, tobacco, soap and mineral water in its factories and export zone; gem cutting and craft workshops in the centre; and farming all around, with rice, potatoes, carrots, fruit and milk sent north to Antananarivo; the town is also Madagascar's main apple producer, at some 10,000 tonnes a year.

Days begin cold and early, with fritters and rice porridge sold at the roadside and rickshaws lining up before dawn. The market is busiest in the morning, the middle of the day is bright and warm, and by dusk the streets are quiet. Water and power cuts, the cost of rice and the rising number of people looking for work in town are the everyday concerns, along with the winter cold in houses built without heating.

Food

Antsirabe eats highland food. Rice comes with a laoka: romazava, the broth of beef and leafy greens flavoured with the numbing herb anamalao; ravitoto sy henakisoa, pounded cassava leaves cooked with pork; voanjobory, Bambara groundnuts stewed with meat; or beans and smoked fish. Sakay, a fiery chilli paste, is on the table, and ranovola, the smoky water boiled in the burnt rice pan, is drunk with the meal.

The plateau's dairy farms give the town something unusual in Madagascar: fresh milk, yoghurt and cheese, sold in shops and stalls across the town. Vegetables from the cool uplands — potatoes, carrots, leeks, tomatoes, strawberries in season — appear in the market in quantities rarely seen on the coasts.

Street food is the same as elsewhere on the plateau: mofo gasy rice cakes cooked in charcoal moulds at daybreak, kitoza strips of smoked zebu, masikita skewers grilled at dusk, sambos, and koba, the log of ground peanuts, sugar and rice flour steamed in banana leaf. Three Horses Beer, brewed in the town since the 1950s, is the standard drink; toaka gasy, the local rum, is widely produced and drunk neat or as rhum arrangé.

Planning tools

Budget

Antsirabe is cheaper than the capital in almost everything. Guesthouses and hotely meals cost little, a rickshaw across town is a small sum, and the main expenses are a hired car with driver for the lakes and Betafo, and whatever is spent in the gem and craft workshops. Cash machines exist in the town centre but not in the villages beyond it.

Daily Budget Midrange
USD 70–160 (comfortable hotel, restaurant dinners, a car with driver for day trips)
Daily Budget Shoestring
USD 20–35 (guesthouse room, hotely meals, taxi-brousse and pousse-pousse)

Agree the fare with a rickshaw driver before setting off, and change or withdraw money here rather than in the smaller towns further south.

Best Time to Visit

May to September is the driest time, with April and October close behind, best for the lakes, the terraces and walking. The town sits higher than Antananarivo and its winter nights, from June to August, are cold, so warm clothes are needed. November to March is warmer and wetter, with muddy tracks and the greenest paddies.

Suggested Number of Days

A day or two is enough for the town itself, which is small and easily covered on foot or by rickshaw. Two or three allow the surrounding countryside as well. Many travellers stop here for a night on the way south along the RN7.

First Visit
1–2 days
With Surroundings
2–3 days

Transportation

Pousse-pousse and cyclo-pousse rickshaws are the standard way to move around town, alongside small buses, tuk-tuks and private taxis. Taxi-brousse minibuses leave mostly from the main bus station in the north of the city for Antananarivo, for the south along the RN7 and for Betafo and Morondava to the west. Cars with drivers can be hired for the lakes and the surrounding countryside.

Roads to the crater lakes and Betafo are rough in places, so allow more time than the distances suggest.

Airport & Station Connections

Antsirabe is reached by road. The RN7 from Antananarivo, about 170 kilometres north, takes roughly four to five hours by taxi-brousse or car depending on traffic leaving the capital, and the same road continues south towards Ambositra and Fianarantsoa. Most visitors fly into Ivato at Antananarivo. The railway from the capital now carries only freight.

Walkability

The centre is flat, laid out on wide straight avenues, and easy to walk end to end in half an hour. Pavements are uneven and the traffic mixes cars, rickshaws and carts, but distances are short and the altitude keeps the air cool. The lakes and the terraces are too far to walk and need a vehicle or a bicycle.

Safety

Outside Antananarivo the highlands are generally calm, though petty theft happens in the market and around the bus stations, and the RN7 has a poor accident record. Political demonstrations concentrate in the capital rather than here, but national unrest can affect fuel supplies and road travel. Roads out of town are unlit and used by pedestrians and carts after dark.

Carry little in the market, use a taxi or rickshaw after dark, and do not travel by road at night. Check current official travel advice before travelling.

Climate

Cool for the tropics, and colder than the capital because of the altitude. The southern-hemisphere summer, December to February, is the rainy season, with warm days and heavy afternoon storms; the winter months of June to August are dry and sunny by day with sharply cold nights, and frost is possible on the higher ground nearby.

Summer
warm and wet, about 15–26°C, with afternoon thunderstorms from November to March
Winter
dry and sunny by day, about 17–21°C, with nights near or below 5°C

Local Customs

Greetings are unhurried and a handshake is usual. Malagasy is spoken everywhere and French is widely understood. The pousse-pousse pullers, craft sellers and guides who approach visitors in the street are working hard for small sums; a polite refusal is understood. Ancestral custom is strong on the plateau, and tombs stand in the fields around the town.

Ask before photographing people, tombs or ceremonies, dress modestly, and treat family tombs as private property.

Common Payment Methods

The currency is the Malagasy ariary. Cash machines and banks are in the town centre and change euros and US dollars; cards are taken by the larger hotels and a few restaurants and gem dealers, but everything else — markets, rickshaws, hotely meals, workshops — is cash, in small notes.