Algiers from Monument of the Martyrs

Algiers is built on and around the hills that rise steeply from the Mediterranean; sea level to 1400 feet in short order.  

One of the ladies from the embassy wanted to take a picture of the little girls, so then they had to reciprocate.   Many, many groups of children were out today, in the park, on the cablecar, at the monument.  Don't know what the occasion was, or even if there was an occasion.

The port and bay of Algiers.  Looking nominally west, toward the Casbah, and up in the hills, El Biar.

Nominally east.  I say nominally, because the Mediterranean shore in North Africa runs on an east-west, but of course a lot of times it may be northeast, or due north, etc.

A bumper thistle crop.  

 More thistles, looking west toward Algiers and the port.

Back to looking east.  You can see the land off in the distance that forms the eastern edge of the bay.

There are three of these stylized Algerian fighter martyr statutes, one at each of the three legs of the monument.

The base of the monument.  The soldiers won't allow people on the platform between the legs.

Jardin d'essai

The Jardin d'essai is conveniently located right at the Jardin d'essai Metro stop, about three miles east of Le Grande Poste.  Jardin d'essai translates literally as "Test Garden," and was originally developed by the French in 1832 as a test garden so they could experiment with crops that they might be able to grow in their newly (1830) acquired colonial territory.  It was expanded from the original five acres, but even now is not extremely large. 

A few notes on the flora.  First of all, it is continually amazing to me how many similar plants we see around the Mediterranean that remind us of plants we had in Jackson, Mississippi, or at least in our Belhaven neighborhood.  Today I saw fatsia, oleander, nandina, and other things.  Some of the things we grow in Jackson as either indoor plants or annuals, such as poinsettia, mandevilla, bouganvilla, do not have the annual hard freeze to contend with, so they are quite large.  And speaking of quite large, the ficus trees in the Gardens are truly amazing.


These trees are cousins to our American Sycamore.  They are Plane trees, and they get huge.

These are ficus trees.

I don't know what kind of trees these are, but I love the tuft of leaves on top and the bare branches below.

Would one of my Arab scholar friends please tell me if this says "don't pick the flowers" or "Keep off the grass"?  The Bay at the end of the walk, although a highway now runs along the beach.

The Museum of Fine Arts is the building at the end of the garden.  The very tall edifice at the top-right is the Memorial du Martyr, those killed during the Algerian war of independence from France, which ended in 1962.

A very large ficus tree -- I think they keep the roots trimmed off before they can be established in the ground.  Some of the very old trees of this type can cover acres, I discovered when  I Googled it -- I thought they were called banyan trees, but they're the same thing.  

From the park entrance down to the Bay.  This will be worth the trip during the summer.  There is a restaurant in the middle of the garden where we ate lunch.  Very nice sitting outside under the trees.

Le Grande Poste

A week ago Cindy and I walked down to the center of town and used the Post Office as our destination when we asked for directions, but I didn't take a camera.  Today I went on a little excursion with some people from the embassy, and this was our first stop.  The post office is close to the Bay, on what I call the "flat part" of the city, which is a narrow strip of land along the coast.  But the flat land does not extend very far inland.

The tents/kiosks are artisan booths.  They weren't up last Saturday; I'm not sure of the reason for them being there today.  Algiers has virtually nothing in the way of tourist traffic, so these are all things with sales to Algerians in mind, not to tourists.  Looked like some nice stuff.

The view from the front steps of the post office.  The post office was built in 1910, and designed by a French architectural firm.  I think the buildings in the area date from the same general era.

The Mediterranean in the distance.

I don't think cameras were allowed inside, but there were no signs.  After I took these few interior views of the post office someone came over and said something, which I understood to be "no pictures."  The building was damaged in 2007 or 2008 by a bomb blast, and a couple of years ago there was a little explosion and fire, which was said to be caused by a gas line problem, but I gather there is some public dispute about the actual provenance of that blast.  So I guess I can understand the photo ban.  It is quite an impressive building, though.

The central ceiling. 

1910 French versions of Moorish horseshoe arches.