Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, is often referred to as 'Little Rome' (Piccola Roma). During the Italian colonial period in the 1930s, Italian architects used the city as a canvas for experimental modernist and Futurist architecture. As a result, Asmara contains one of the world's most complete and well-preserved collections of Art Deco, Cubist, and Rationalist buildings, which earned it a UNESCO World Heritage designation in 2017. One famous landmark is the Fiat Tagliero Building, a service station shaped like an airplane with massive cantilevered wings. Perched on the edge of a highland escarpment, Asmara enjoys a cool, Mediterranean-like climate. The city is also famous for its bicycle culture, a legacy of the Italians, and it produces some of the world's top professional cyclists. Despite the country's political isolation, the capital remains an architectural time capsule of early 20th-century design.