Jijel has also produced more than its share of Algeria’s literary and musical talent — it is a city that reads, argues, and makes music, with a local character shaped equally by mountains and sea. Come in October, when the summer crowds have gone, the sea is still warm enough to swim and the forest paths are smelling of cedar and rain.
A Final Note on Visiting Algeria
Algeria is not an easy destination to visit in the classical tourist sense. Visas can be bureaucratically challenging, independent travel requires preparation and flexibility, and the country’s infrastructure, while improving fast, remains uneven. But for the traveller willing to lean into its friction, it rewards with something increasingly rare: genuine discovery. These are not cities that have been polished for consumption, not landscapes that know they’re being photographed. This is a country that gets on with existing, in its magnificent, complicated, under-examined way — and lets you, if you’re paying attention, catch a glimpse of how much has been quietly going on here since the Romans, since before the Romans, since the very beginning.
