Béjaïa today is a university town on the Gulf of Béjaïa, hemmed between the Kabyle mountains and the sea, with a distinctly Berber cultural identity and some of the most dramatic coastal scenery in North Africa. The star of the show is the Cap Carbon lighthouse in Gouraya National Park — a lighthouse on a sheer cliff dropping into the Mediterranean, the highest natural lighthouse cliff face in the world, reachable by a hiking trail through forest populated by Barbary macaques (a species of tailless monkey that will happily steal your lunch given the opportunity).
The mountain above the city, Yemma Gouraya, is topped by a sanctuary sacred to the Berber figure of the same name, and the views from the summit — city, bay, mountains, sea — are extraordinary. The beaches along the Gulf are genuinely beautiful, the Casbah retains traces of its Hammadid kingdom origins, and the evening café culture in the lower town is everything a Mediterranean evening should be.
