Sights in Algiers
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Musée National du Moudjahid
This museum sits beneath the Makam Echahid, its mission to collect, preserve and display objects and memories of the struggle against colonialism. It starts with the story of the French invasion of 1830, but focuses on the glorious struggle from the uprising in Sétif, Constantine and Guelma in 1944 to Independence Day in July 1962. Although information is in Arabic, the meaning of the exhibits is easy to understand, from Abdelkader’s pistols to reports of executions of ‘terrorists’. The museum’s lower floor is a domed sanctuary, a natural shrine of low light and no noise, its walls inscribed with verses from the Quran.
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Notre Dame d'Afrique
The Byzantine-inspired Notre Dame d’Afrique, known locally as Madame Afrique, sits above the bustle of the city, seemingly impervious to the fact that the people who created it and filled its pews have long gone. The idea for the church is said to have come from two women of Lyon, who missed the shrine that sits above their native city and who placed a statue of the virgin in the hollow of an olive tree on the north of the city. The basilica was finally consecrated in 1872 by Bishop Lavigerie, founder of the White Fathers. Four years later, the statue was crowned ‘queen of Africa’ with the approval of the Pope in Rome. The date of that event, 30 April, has become the…
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Dar Hassan Pacha
The building beside the Ketchoua Mosque was once the city's grandest mansions and carries the name of its original owner, Dar Hassan Pacha. Hassan was the ruler or Dey of Algiers, a man with a sense of purpose - in 1795 he concluded a peace treaty with the fledgling United States of America guaranteeing their ships safe passage in Algiers' waters. Before that, around 1791, he began his palace on the edge of the Casbah, but away from the waterside, which was vulnerable and damp in winter. When Algiers fell to the French the house was turned into the governor's winter residence. Its facade was remodelled, and unlike most large houses here the Dar Hassan Pacha was given a…
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Djemaa el-Kebir
A few steps from the Djemma el-Djedid, the Djemaa el-Kebir continues a tradition that goes back to the early history of Algiers. On a rise above the inner port, early Berber and Phoenician inhabitants built places of prayer here, which the Romans turned into a temple; later it was converted into a Christian basilica. One apse of the basilica faced east and was hung with carpets and icons. This was later torn down and replaced, in the 11th century, by the mosque, which has since been much altered and enlarged. Inside the five doors the prayer hall is supported by rows of columns, 72 in all, and contains a cedarwood minbar which carries an inscription stating that the…
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Bardo Museum of Prehistory & Ethnography
The Bardo Museum of Prehistory & Ethnography was built at the end of the 18th century as the country residence of a Tunisian prince exiled in Algiers. Enlarged by a Frenchman during the colonial period, it has been a museum since 1930, displaying the early history and later ethnology of the region. This includes some fabulous fossils, a collection of Neolithic pottery and stones, and particularly impressive rock carvings and paintings of horses and chariots brought from deep in the Sahara in the Tassili N’Ajjer region. Better still is the collection of urban artefacts in the ethnography section. See the elegant copper tea pot, the carved and painted wooden furniture and…
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Palais des Raïs
The palace is in fact a row of several large waterfront houses, joined up to form a single compound and now home to the Centre des Arts et de la Culture. Palace 18, the main building, was begun in 1750 and completed around 1798 by the Dey Mustapha Pacha, who used it as one of his residences. The French military occupied it for a while, after which it served as the American consulate, a school and a library before becoming the most successful restoration project in the city. The buildings are used as exhibition space for some excellent shows, but much of the pleasure and interest is in seeing inside a grand, Ottoman-period mansion. The rooms are rarely massive,…
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Citadel
The city's stronghold, the Citadel dominates the Casbah and the port and was, from the 16th century, the guarantor of peace and a safe haven in times of war. Although there was a Berber stronghold here from early times, the present massive structure was begun in 1516 by Aroudj, the brother of Kheireddin Barbarossa. With its walls lined with batteries of canon, 188m above sea level, it dominated the port, the lower town and the surrounding countryside.
Canons were placed facing inland as well as out to sea, for the ruler of Algiers was never free of threats from Berber and Bedouin tribes. The citadel was little more than military barracks until 1816, when the British…
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Djemaa el-Djedid
Colonial French town planners cleared many Ottoman buildings when they redesigned the Algiers waterfront and laid out what is now the place des Martyrs, but they left the Djemaa el-Djedid. Contrary to its name, the New Mosque, sometimes also called the Pêcherie Mosque, was built in 1660 on the site of an earlier Quranic school and paid for by public subscription. The mosque is unusual for Algiers, built in a recognisably Turkish style, with a series of domes and vaults, although the minaret is Andalusian in style. It is also unusual for being designed as a cross: local legend has it that the architect was a Christian, supposedly executed for his trickery. It has two…
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Jardin d'Essai
Another grand civic project planted by the French, the Jardin d’Essai dates to the first years of their occupation. In the early 1830s, as soon as the French were in control of Algiers, land was set aside for a model farm and a garden in which they could try out various plants. The idea was to test what would grow best here, given the soil and climate, in the hope of improving crop yields and greening the landscape. The model farm disappeared, but the Jardin d’Essai flourished and by the end of the 19th century was one of the world’s great natural hothouses. It has continued to develop and is currently undergoing improvements. A place of outstanding beauty, when it…
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Djemma Ali Bitchine
In the rough days of Algerian piracy, when a man might be snatched off a ship in the high sea and given a choice of slavery or conversion, there were many so-called renegades, people around the Mediterranean who changed religion. Ali Bitchine was one. A sailor from Venice, his original name may have been Piccinino. Whoever he had been in Italy, in Algiers he was a sailor who rose to become a grand admiral of the fleet. In 1622 he built the Djemma Ali Bitchine. The plan is unusual, the domed design clearly influenced by Italian or Byzantine churches. Like several other mosques, this one was used as a church during the French occupation, when it was known as Notre Dame des…
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National Museum of Antiquities
The richness of Algeria’s heritage is brought home in the understated but well chosen collection on display at the National Museum of Antiquities, a short walk from the Bardo Museum. The collection of antiquities is drawn from sites around the city and throughout Algeria. Among the early works are fine ivory carvings and large, totemic Libyan-period warriors on horseback. There is sculpture from Cherchell and mosaics from Tipaza, a room of bronzes including a wonderful fragment of a horse’s leg and hoof, and an extraordinary 3rd-century figure of a chubby child holding an eagle to its chest. There is also a collection of Islamic art from across the Maghreb. The museum…
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Musée des Beaux Arts
At the edge of the Jardin d’Essai and a short walk from the Martyrs’ Memorial, the Musée des Beaux Arts houses the best collection of art in the country. Opened in 1930 and with some 8000 items on the walls and in store, it traces the progress of European and particularly French art from the 16th century, starting with Barnaba di Modena, passing through the neoclassicists such as David and Delacroix, Orientalists including Fromentin and a Renoir painted during the artist’s visit in 1882. There is also a sizeable collection of work by Algerian artists and by artists from elsewhere, donated when Algeria won independence.
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Makam Echahid
One of the most recognisable landmarks in the city, the Makam Echahid celebrates the sacrifice of the unknown martyr who fell for his country. The monument, constructed by the Canadians in the early 1980s, is made up of three massive concrete palm fronds that come together and soar 92m into the sky; they represent the coming together of agriculture, culture and industry to make independent Algeria great. The nearby Bois des Arcades offers shade and some great views.
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Grande Poste
A post office might not be high on everyone’s list of things to see, but Grande Poste, completed in 1908 after eight years of construction, is a classic piece of French-inspired hispano-Moorish architecture and is worth a brief visit, even if you don’t need stamps or a phone card. One of the world’s most elaborate post boxes is near the entrance, while the façade carries the names of Algeria’s principal towns and cities.
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Ville Nouvelle
The Ville Nouvelle is not new and nor is it French. Early on, the Ottoman-backed rulers of Algiers and their powerful courtiers were building themselves summer houses and pleasure pavilions up on the heights of the broad crescent of hill that backs the bay of Algiers. Although the entire hillside and much beyond has now been developed to accommodate a growing population, some of the old villas remain, a few of them converted into museums and other public spaces.
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Museum of Popular Arts & Traditions
This museum is the most accessible of the buildings one can visit in the Casbah. It is housed in a fine example of an Ottoman-period town house, the Dar Khedaoudj el-Amia, which follows the classic town house plan, with an entrance leading to an inner hall and a staircase up to the principal rooms. The museum contains a fascinating collection of traditional Algerian arts and crafts.
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