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Undoubtedly Lalibela is site of one of the Wonders (the Eighth, you may call it) of the World, Lalibela owes its fame to the incredibly fashioned Lalibela churches, all carved out of red solid volcanic rock by carpenters, with the help, during the night, of angels, as legend has it. Such belief may be scoffed at, but let us accept it as a metaphor for the awe with which they strike the beholder, a site which today is enlisted as a world heritage site by Unesco.

The most famous Bete Giyorgis church

The famous rock-hewn Bet Giyorgis.

Bete Medhane Alem

A Lalibela monk

Bete Mariam (house of Mariam)

Church paintings in Tana Lake Islands

The churches can be divided into two main groups: one to the south and the other to north of a stream locally known as the Jordan River.

There are several other rock hewen churches within a day's journey of Lalibela. They include: Yemrehanna Kiristos, Arba'itu Ensissa, Bilbila Giyorgis, and Sarsana Mika'el. The church of Ashetan Maryam is located in the mountain high above the town. Na'akuto La'ab is a church built in a cave. Ukre Messale Christos is found near Sekota, where the mummified remains of several wag-shums, former rulers of Wollo, are to be found. Mules and guides are easily obtained for visits to these more out-of-reach churches.

Yes! Lalibela is indeed a sight to behold!

The churches in the first group, six in number, lie in their rock cradles, one behind the other, north of the river. They are: Bete Golgota, Bete (meaning house of) Mika'el (also known as Bete Debre Sina), Bete Maryam, Bete Meskel, Bete Danaghel, and Bete Medhane Alem. Of these six churches, the most unusual is Bete Medhane Alem, the larges of all the Lalibela churches, built in the form of a Greek temple and surrounded by square-shaped columns, with a further twenty-eight massive rectangular columns supporting the roof inside.

Bete Maryam in Lalibela, is said to have been favored by King Lalibela, who attended the daily mass there. A deep square pool in the courtyard is said to have miraculous properties, and infertile women dip themselves in the algae-covered waters, particularly at Christmas.

In the northern wall of the Bete Maryam courtyard is the excavated chapel of Bete Meskel.

Jutting out at the south of the Bete Maryam courtyard is the little chapel of Bete Danaghel. It is said that the chapel was constructed in honor of maidens martyred under Julian the Apostate, who ruled Rome in the mid-fourth century, when Christianity was first brought to Axum.

A tunnel at the southern end of the Bete Maryam courtyard leads to the interconnected churches of Bete Golgota and Bete Mkia'el, which, together with the Selassie Chapel and the Tomb of Adam, form the most mysterious complex in Lalibela. Bete Golgota houses some of the most remarkable pieces of early Christian Ethiopian art: figurative reliefs that are rare elsewhere in the country.

The group south of the Jordan River consists of four churches: Bete Amanuel, Bete Merkorios, Bete Abba Libanos, and Bete Gabriel-Rufa'el. Of these, Bete Amanuel is said to be the finest, with its elaborate exterior much praised by art historians. Its walls imitate the alternate projecting and recessing walls of an Axumite building. Its windows, too, which are irregularly placed, are Axumite in style. Also to the north of the Jordan, but much further west and isolated from the other churches, stands, in a deep pit with perpendicular walls, Bete Giyorgis, which is fashioned in the shape of a Greek cross.