Great report. You did bring back memories.... I grew up in Kenya and my parents had friends in Asmara who moved back to Italy in the early sixties. I have been to Asmara and Massawa as a child. I have a photo outside the Italian Commercial Bank building in 1961 (I was 8)!
They seem to have done some sort of work to keep tha Asmara art deco building. A shame for the bombed building in the old city of Massawa.