Itinerary

Day 1 – Friday 30 July – Algiers

Arrival at Algiers airport, where our driver is waiting for you. From there you transfer to the hotel in downtown Algiers.

Algerians call their capital El Bahdja, “the radiant one”, and it’s also known as Algiers the White – thanks to the whitewashed facades rising up from the Mediterranean coast. It’s a city where Phoenician, Ottoman and French colonial history sit on top of each other, sometimes literally. Tonight there’s nothing on the programme: check in, have dinner, and rest up for tomorrow.

Overnight stay in a hotel in Algiers.

Day 2 – Saturday 31 July – Algiers

After breakfast we start the day in the Casbah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the historic heart of the city. Walking its steep, narrow stairways, you pass traditional courtyard houses (douiras), artisan workshops, old fountains and centuries-old mosques – as well as key places from Algeria’s War of Independence.

After we walk down into the 19th- and early 20th-century city centre built under French rule. The walk ends at La Grande Poste (1910), the city’s white landmark, where European civic architecture meets Moorish arches, carved plasterwork and cedar ceilings.

Next is the Jardin d’Essai du Hamma in the Belouizdad district, a 32-hectare botanical garden founded in 1832 as an acclimatisation garden. On the heights of El Madania stands Maqam Echahid, the Martyrs’ Memorial and the esplanade gives you a wide view over the Bay of Algiers. Directly beneath the memorial plaza is the National Museum of the Moudjahid. It tells the story of Algeria’s resistance against colonial rule.

We end the day at Djamaa el Djazair, the Great Mosque of Algiers, overlooking the bay in Mohammadia. It’s the largest mosque in Africa and the third-largest in the world, and its minaret – 265 metres – is the tallest on the planet.

Overnight stay in Algiers.

Day 3 Sunday 1 August – Algiers – Djemila – Batna

Today we will drive about 3.5 hours east to Djemila, through scenic countryside. Djemila, the Roman town of Cuicul, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on a narrow mountain spur. You walk past the Arch of Caracalla, the Severan forum and temple, a remarkably well-preserved market with the merchants’ stone tables still in place, early Christian basilicas and a theatre built into the hillside.

At the entrance of the site is the museum, with Roman floor mosaics from Djemila’s wealthy villas and public baths. There are also marble sculptures and everyday objects from Roman life.

In the afternoon we drive about 2.5 hours to Batna, the capital of the Aurès and the cultural heartland of the Chaoui, one of Algeria’s Amazigh (Berber) peoples. The town is surrounded by mountains covered in cedar forest, and it’s our base for tomorrow: Timgad is close by.

Overnight stay in a hotel in Batna.

Day 4 – Monday 2 August – Batna – Total Solar Eclipse – Timgad – Constantine

In the early morning we drive to Timgad for one of the reasons you came: the total solar eclipse.

On the morning of 2 August 2027, Timgad lies right in the path of totality of one of the longest total solar eclipses over land this century. Around 10:00 the Moon covers the Sun completely, for about 5 minutes and 20 seconds. You watch it standing between 2,000-year-old stone columns, at 1,000 metres altitude, in the clear air of the Aurès. Hard to think of a better spot.

After the eclipse there’s a guided visit of Timgad itself, the Roman city of Thamugadi and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s the best surviving example of a Roman grid plan, with the two main streets crossing at right angles. Highlights are the Arch of Trajan, the theatre with 3,500 seats, the Capitolium temple, no fewer than fourteen bath complexes and one of the few public libraries that survive from the Roman Empire.

In the afternoon you drive north to Constantine, the “City of Bridges” and ancient Cirta, perched on a limestone plateau surrounded by a deep canyon. You arrive in the evening.

Overnight stay in a hotel in Constantine.

Day 5 – Tuesday 3 August – Constantine – Algiers

Today we’ll discover Constantine, one of Algeria’s most distinctive cities. We start at the Ahmed Bey Palace. It covers more than 5,600 square metres and is a showpiece of Maghrebi-Ottoman architecture: quiet courtyards with orange trees and palms, marble colonnades.

Then the Sidi M’Cid bridge. This 164-metre suspension bridge hangs 175 metres above the bottom of the Rhumel gorge, and when it was completed it was the highest bridge in the world. You walk across – with the canyon and valley below you.

After we visit the Monument aux Morts, a WWI memorial modelled on Timgad’s Arch of Trajan, with one of the best views of the city. Then the Cirta Museum, covering eastern Algeria from prehistory through Numidian, Roman and Islamic times to the colonial era. We walk along the Rhumel gorge, up to 200 metres deep, and end at the Emir Abdelkader Mosque (1994), with its two 107-metre minarets.

After our city tour, we’ll make our way back to Algiers, where we’ll spend our final night in the country.

Overnight stay in a hotel in Algiers.

Day 6 – Wednesday 4 August –  Algiers departure

All good things come to an end, even a journey involving a rather rare astronomical event. After breakfast, we’ll arrange your transfer to Algiers International Airport for your international departure.

Which marks the end of this trip.