Description & Facts: Pictures of Asmara with some background music. The picture of the winding road near the end of the video is the road from Asmara to Massawa (Red sea coast). It is only 75 km but takes a while to drive because as you can see, it is sharp curves all the way down. There is a 7000 ft drop in elevation from the city to the coast and there can be a big change in the temperature from 100f hot and humid at the beach to comfortable 75-80 f up in the city Asmara (capital of Eritrea) was once a colony of Italy and many of the buildings, names of restaurants and hotels, streets, still carry the influences of that era, and Italian is widely spoken, restaurants serve some of the best lasagna and pasta that you will find anywhere.