Constantine is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. It was built over a deep ravine, so there are bridges that cross over the ravine to connect the different areas of the city.
For example, this was the view from the balcony of my hotel room on the first morning when I woke up there! The hotel, by the way, was a former Marriott property that was no longer officially affiliated with the brand, but still had the branding everywhere. My phone automatically connected to the “Marriott Bonvoy” wifi.
The hotel also had a bar, so outside of one night in Algiers when we managed to find a bar to let us in, this was the only part of the trip where we could reliably order drinks with dinner. I was excited to get the chance to try Algerian wine! I enjoyed it, although it wasn’t up to the same standards as some more well-known wine regions. I imagine it’s challenging to get a lot of investment when it’s so difficult to actually sell it to your consumers relative to most other markets.
The first place we visited in the city was the Emir Adelkader Mosque, which is the second largest mosque in Algeria. It was beautiful inside!
It rained heavily off and on as we were touring the city. I, of course, hadn’t brought anything useful against the rain, so it was a cold and wet day for me. This was a hard trip to pack for. It had gotten pretty warm in the Sahara but the coastal parts of Algeria could get quite cold, especially at night.
This whole area was probably my favorite single place we went on the trip. We walked around both sides and even later, the bottom of the ravine, and everywhere you looked was stunning! Because of the dramatic landscape, the city of Constantine has a public transport system that you don’t see every day: gondola. To get back down to the rest of the city, we rode it down to the Kasbah. I loved the experience of the gondola here. It’s clear it isn’t in any way a novelty or a touristy thing – it is just a normal method of public transport for people to get around here.
From there, we made our way through the Kasbah. It was pouring rain on us, so we tried to huddle under the awnings of the shops as we navigated through the streets.
We also visited the Ahmad Bey Palace near here! It was beautiful, with nice gardens and elaborate mosaics. The palace was completed in 1835, which is only two years before the French began occupying Constantine. The ruler who built it did not get much of a chance to enjoy it before the French took it over, and then it became an Algerian military base after Algeria got their independence.
After our visit to the palace, we stopped for lunch, and by the time we had eaten the rain had finally cleared up. It was the perfect time to head down to the bottom of the ravine!
This whole area is just so cool. There’s a trail that you can go on alongside the ravine, and then if you turn into the mountain and go through a dark tunnel, you come out into this:
It is unbelievable that this is just part of a city. This is the kind of place where I am surprised that people were willing to settle here at this scale before we had the kind of technology we do now. When bridges were harder to build and gondolas didn’t exist, how difficult was it to cross this city?
Constantine was definitely a highlight of Algeria for me. This portion of the trip was an add-on and I am so glad I was able to make it work – it was a worthy addition of this itinerary!
And with that, that’s a wrap on Algeria! This was my first visit to Northern Africa (if you don’t count a night at an airport hotel in Cairo, which I certainly don’t). I loved Algeria. While the visa ended up being more challenging than I expected, once I got on that plane from Marseille, I had a great time. The diversity of landscapes and experiences that you can have in Algeria and the well-preserved historical sites makes for a really interesting visit. I would definitely recommend it.