Monday, October 12th.
Constantine is an ancient city built on top of a spectacular gorge carved by the Rhumel River. Known to Romans as Cirta, it became Constantine the Great's namesake in the 4th century, but its story stretches back over two millennia to Numidian kings who recognized this natural fortress's strategic perfection. We started our city tour with a visit to the Emir Abdelkader Mosque, one of the world's largest. It was built between 1969-94 by a constortium of Moroccans, Egyptians and Algerians with a cross cultural interior with elements of Muslim and Christian motifs. The interior was very decorative with intricately carved marble, wood and plaster. It was beautiful and moody with a beautiful dome. In the women area there were stain glass windows reflecting lovely colours on the carpet and walls. From there we went to the National Museum of Cirta, where we saw artifacts of the history of the area from pre-history to the modern day, with an emphasis on the Roman era. Outside the museum as the huge monumental Arch of the Dead, commemorating the 800 Muslim, Christians and Jewish soldiers who died fighting for France during the First World War perched on a fabulous panoramic overlook of the city and environs. Next we went for a city walk along the edge of the gorge. In the past peering into the gorge would reveal their colourful leather goods created in the tanneries drying in the North African sun, but that industry has been lost to the past. We walked along the perimeter of the gorge peering below and taking photos. The gorge, is 120 metres deep in places, and creates a natural moat around three sides of the city. Ottoman, French, and modern engineers have spanned this chasm with increasingly ambitious bridges, each generation adding its own architectural signature to this vertical cityscape. We crossed several of them by bus and on foot. We were lead through the narrow winding streets of the Kasbah, the oldest part of the city with its multitude of small shops selling all manner of things. We even visited the oldest mill in the city that grinds all the grains, nuts, dates and other products into powder for cooking and baking. At the Palace of Ahmed Bey, we visited a magnificent palace built in the 19th-century by the Ottomans as a house for the old district leader (the Bey). It attempts to blend European palatial grandeur with Islamic decorative traditions. Unfortunately he only lived in it for 19 months before the French invaded and turned it into a government building, and after they were kicked out it became a museum. Finally we left beautiful Constantine behind as we drove 5 hours retracing our steps back to Algiers. We arrived about 8 and had the Lamar Hotel buffet before collapsing in our rooms.
