We began our trip to Northern Africa and France with great expectations. One of us is a fan of the show Emily in Paris. In a Season 4 episode, there is an Air France product placement in which Emily visits the flagship Air France lounge in CDG terminal 2F. Our flight to Algiers out of CDG just happened to be leaving from this terminal, so we planned a visit on a 3-hour layover between flights.
Sadly, fate (or at least Air France) had other plans for us. Our streak of international flights departing late (or not at all!) continued, and our flight from YVR was delayed by an hour. We made up some time on the flight and thought that we still might have time to pop into the lounge in 2F, but then it turned out that our flight to Algiers was leaving from an L gate, technically in terminal 2F, but physically in 2E! We would have had to clear security twice, and possibly immigration too, all in two hours. After a 10-hour flight it just wasn’t going to happen. The Air France lounge in our terminal was just fine (although not as amazing as their flagship location judging by the pictures) and all that we really needed.
The flight on Air France across the Atlantic was great. They really go all out with the food and wine, and the service was fantastic. Unfortunately, the next flight leg of the trip, from Paris to Algiers, was the complete opposite, but no point on dwelling on that here. It was at least short, with spectacular views of the Pyrenees, then the Mediterranean, over Mallorca, and then the “White City” of Algiers nestled in a huge bay. Soon enough we were into Algeria.
We had been warned that the Algerian VOA (visa on arrival) process was expensive and time consuming. It was certainly expensive; an eye watering $154 USD each. We’re not sure if visas are so expensive because there are so few tourists, or if it’s the other way around and that there are so few visitors because visas are expensive and difficult to obtain. But at least we got lucky and cleared immigration in just 20 minutes or so rather than the 2 hours we had been warned that it might take. And apparently it was just luck since our driver into Algiers told us that his previous day’s customer took 4 hours!
The drive into downtown was a traffic-choked mess but with a couple of highlights. We saw a huge mosque which we were told was the third largest in the world and the largest in Africa, and the Martyrs Memorial perched on a hill above the capital. It turns out that the Djamaa el Djazaïr mosque is not the third largest, not even in the top 10, and became just the second largest in Africa when Egypt pulled ahead. But the minaret still triumphantly holds the record for tallest minaret in the world; at 265 metres. Unfortunately, we’d never be able to see this it for ourselves since there is only one mosque in all of Algeria open to visits by non-Muslims. We would get a chance to visit the Martyrs Memorial in the coming days though.
Once into our hotel we desperately need a nap, but afterwards had time to go out and admire the Haussmann architecture of one of the main streets of Algiers (that actually predates that of Paris!), have a light dinner at El Walima traditional restaurant, and head back to the hotel for a full night’s sleep. The cat pictured below, guarding the door to our inn, was just one of thousands of cats throughout the city.
The following day was a full jet lag recovery day that involved sleeping in, followed by multiple naps, with the only touristic activities being visits to a couple of top notch museums. The National Museum of Antiquities and Islamic Arts had some particularly fine Roman mosaics, and the Bardo National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography, housed in an Ottoman era villa, traced Algeria back to the Stone Age. Too tired to see any more, we returned to El Walima for tasty tagine and mint tea.
