Algeria has the most Roman ruins outside of Italy, and we spent the next couple days of the trip exploring some of them! I loved this part of the trip, because we got a bit of a road trip to explore areas that were clearly less on the tourist trail (insofar as that exists in Algeria).
Coastal Algeria is beautiful and mountainous and so much greener than I expected, especially coming off of the Sahara part of the trip. We headed to Djémila first. Djémila, originally called Cuicul, was built in the 1st century CE as a Roman military base due to its strategic location near two rivers. Like Tipaza, it felt like the landscape really added a lot to the experience of visiting the ruins.
Once again, it was incredible to see how well-preserved everything was. The carvings and inscriptions are still visible. And once again, we were the only people at these sites. Occasionally, we would see local Algerians as well, but I don’t remember seeing any other foreign tourists at any of the Roman sites we visited.
I wouldn’t say I’m an expert at Roman history, but I always enjoy exploring one of these sites. I find it so incredible that these civilizations were able to build the kinds of structures that you can still see centuries later, well before we had the kinds of modern technology that we do now.
We also headed to the museum to see the mosaics, which were largely pulled out of the ruins to ensure that they would be protected. Across all the sites we went to in Algeria, I was blown away by how cool and intricate the mosaics were – the level of artwork that they produced in these sites was unreal.
We also stopped at Medracen, which is a royal mausoleum from the Berber Numidian Kingdom. It’s currently undergoing some repair work. I do wish that both this and the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania had been through some of that repair work already – I think it would have been very cool to be able to go inside.
The last of the Roman sites we visited was Timgad! This is the most famous site in Algeria by far. In fact, when I was googling “Roman ruins in Algeria” to refresh my memories of the general background of this portion of the trip, it just pulled up the information about Timgad.
It’s known for being one of the best representations of city planning and the grid system in ancient Roman cities. It was founded in about 100 CE and ended up as a major center of Christian activity in the 3rd and 4th centuries before it was taken over by Byzantine North Africa in 539 CE.
One of my most vivid memories of this tour was how excited our guide was to show us the bathrooms! To be fair, they did seem extremely nice for that time period, and of course the most important one was a toilet that had dolphins carved into the armrests. The Romans knew what they were doing when they designed a city, that’s for sure.
And with that, I’m down to one more post on Algeria – next week, I’ll cover my visit to Constantine! But it’s been an amazing itinerary. I’ve been so impressed by the variety of experiences that you can get in one country. The Roman ruins that we saw in Algeria were really cool. If you’re willing to deal with the visa, these are definitely worth a visit.