The Cathedral of Our Lady of La Salette is the most prominent building in the Antsirabe skyline — a red-brick neo-Gothic structure with twin towers that would not look out of place in provincial France. Built in the early 20th century by the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, it stands near the town centre and is still the main Catholic church of the diocese.
The interior is cool and dark, with stained glass that softens the equatorial light. Even for non-religious visitors it is worth stepping inside for a few minutes: the scale of the building against the highland landscape around it gives a vivid sense of the ambitions the missionaries brought to Madagascar, and the congregation that fills it on Sundays is substantial enough to suggest those ambitions have not entirely faded.