17. Skikda — Ancient Rusicade, Industrial Secret
Skikda, known to the Romans as Rusicade, is an industrial port city that most travel writers skip and most travellers never hear about. This is, as with so much of Algeria, their loss. Skikda’s hinterland is one of the most spectacular on the entire Algerian coast: deep coral reefs off the Cap de Fer peninsula, beaches of startling quality at Collo and Stora (the ancient Punic port of Rusicade’s predecessor), and just inland, the cork-oak forests of the El Kala National Park, a biosphere reserve that runs to the Tunisian border and is one of the last great temperate forest wildernesses in North Africa.
The city itself has a Roman theatre, thermal baths and a compact but rewarding archaeological museum with finds from Rusicade and surrounding sites. The corniche promenade has the particular character of Algerian port-city evenings — families out at sunset, fishermen heading home, the smell of the sea mixing with coffee and bread from the market. For divers, the waters around Cap de Fer hold some of the Mediterranean’s clearest visibility and most undisturbed marine life.
