Tipaza, just 70 kilometres west of Algiers on the coast, holds a remarkable layering of civilisations in a compact, beautiful space. The Phoenicians traded here. The Romans conquered it, built an amphitheatre, basilicas, thermal baths, villas and necropolises. The early Christians left their own basilicas. The Byzantines added theirs. Now it all sits above a turquoise sea, much of it accessible on a coastal path where you walk among ancient stone with the Mediterranean crashing below you. Few ancient sites anywhere in the world are this cinematic.
The nearby Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, a circular funerary tower on the coastal plain, is believed to contain the remains of the Berber king Juba II and his wife, Cleopatra Selene II — daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra of Egypt. If true, the connections are vertiginous. The site is UNESCO listed. The views from the mausoleum hill at dusk are the sort that empty your head of everything.
11. Tamanrasset — Where the Sahara Grows Vertical
Most people picture the Sahara as flat — a sea of sand rolling to the horizon in every direction. Tamanrasset, sitting 1,400 kilometres south of Algiers, in the heart of the Hoggar (Ahaggar) Mountains, corrects that picture completely. Here the desert is volcanic and vertical: black basalt towers called aiguilles jut from the plateau like the teeth of some enormous animal, their bases the deep red of cooling iron. The landscape is harsh, hallucinatory, and absolutely unlike anywhere else on earth.
