Before Antananarivo, there was Ambohimanga. Of the 12 famous hills of Madagascar, Ambohimanga is arguably the most significant historically and spiritually to the Malagasy people. Herein lie the founders of modern Madagascar, the site where they sowed the seeds of a civilization on an estranged island on the Indian Ocean. The story of Ambohimanga begins 500 years prior when the Merina of Indonesia are suspected to have sailed down to Madagascar.

From the 15th to the 19th Century, they flourished. Walk through the twin palaces, courtyards and pavilions, the medicinal garden surrounding the Royal Enclosure. 7 entrances and a circular stone seal guard the weekend cottage of tyrannous Queen Ranavalona who hung the heads of foreigners on stakes at the ports to keep away invaders and colonial ships. In the public courtyard are fountains and sacrificial stones that formed a central tenet of the Malagasy faith. Wooden stilts rising from the shrubs are a world away from the Rova architecture of the current political center of Antananarivo. Yet these are the evidences of 4 centuries of development exist atop the hill of Antananarivo, symbolizing the pinnacle of Malagasy culture and belief that is still very much alive today.