Arrived in Algeria

Algeria is living up to our hopes and expectations! We arrived in the capital city Algiers on Saturday via Paris (but alas, just a 2-hour stop there, so no patisseries for me), and were met by our first guide Moncef, who was a pleasure to tour with.

Started a walking tour in downtown Algiers with a visit to the Bardo Museum of Ethnography. Amazing exhibits of prehistoric cave art, also intricate 19th-century embroidery, and as a bonus it’s housed in a beautiful Moorish villa dating from the late 1700s. I’ll post a picture of the courtyard, as well as one of an interesting type of door we have seen in other Islamic countries. You’ll see 2 knockers — the larger one for use by male visitors, the smaller by women. They each make a distinctive sound inside the house, and if a man knocks, any ladies inside will not answer the door. Sometimes think I could use one of these at home 😉

The Algiers seafront is impressive — French-style architecture reminiscent of Haussmann’s Paris. I gather these buildings are large and expensive rental flats. Certainly they would have a million-dollar view of the harbour.

Day Two was older history; first we headed to Tipaza, to visit the hilltop Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, built about 300 BC as the tomb of the Berber king Juba II and his Egyptian Queen Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of the more-famous Cleopatra and Mark Antony. An interesting monument, it looks like a dome that would have open space inside, but in fact, the ground level of the monument is all solid blocks of stone, and inside there is a descending narrow passage through the blocks that leads to the underground crypt, where the king and queen are interred.

Next, on to the Roman city of Cherchell, which boasts a well-preserved arena, temples, roads, and a marketplace. And situated beautifully on the Mediterranean. The road is in great shape for being 2,000+ years old, and by the way, when they were building the modern highway from here all the way into into Algiers, they pretty much laid it right over the Roman road, which was and remains the best route, so the flagstone road that we saw eventually morphs into the modern highway.

Day 3 found us back in Algiers proper, and the highlight of the day was an afternoon strolling the old central city, better known as the Casbah. It’s the original city, and was originally built from the harbour’s edge right up to the top of a significant hill. When the French colonized Algiers they destroyed a section of the Casbah down by the water, and replaced it with the aforementioned beautiful blocks of flats, but the Casbah behind these, and indeed all the way up the hill, is well-preserved and extremely picturesque.

Next stop, on to Constantine!