Age-Old Algeria: From Algiers to the M'Zab via Tipaza

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This itinerary covers Algeria's overwhelming diversity, the largest country in Africa and one of the least visited. It begins in Algiers, the white capital gazing over the Mediterranean, where the Kasbah — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — snakes uphill with its alleyways of impossible stairs. The excursion to Tipaza reveals one of the most beautiful sets of Roman ruins in the world, with the sea as backdrop. A flight south takes the traveler to the M'Zab valley, a cluster of five fortified Ibadite cities from the 11th century where time seems to have stopped: Ghardaïa, with its white pyramid-shaped mosque and its century-old carpet market. The route continues into the Great South: El Menia, palm oasis beside the dunes of the Grand Erg Occidental; Timimoun, the red town where adobe houses melt into the desert; Beni Abbes, with its fossil cliffs and its Sahara museum. The journey culminates in Taghit, where orange dunes 400 ft tall kiss an oasis of 800,000 palms. Twelve days through an Algeria very few travelers have had the privilege of knowing.