A mesmerizing inland sea fringed by lush tropical vegetation, the 3,156 km² Lake Tana is most easily explored from Bahir Dar, a well-equipped port city that doubles as the capital of the Amhara Region. The source of the Blue Nile, Tana was known to the ancient Egyptians as Coloe, while the ancient Greeks extolled it as the ‘copper-tinted… jewel of Ethiopia’. In June 2015, Lake Tana became the centerpiece of a 5,000 km² UNESCO biosphere reserve.