Get Lost In The Casbah!
Expert Algeria is one of North Africa’s foremost specialists in incentives and team building programmes.Below you will find just one of the circuits that we offer to promote team-building and to help participants understand how groups of people can best work together. For more information, please contact us.
Less than three hours from London, yet virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, Algiers is one of the Mediterranean’s most mesmerising cities, a captivating mélange of faded French grandeur and neo-Moorish folly crowned by a legendary, UNESCO-protected casbah. Were “Alger La Blanche” situated on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, this dazzling euphony of blue and white would be one of Europe’s most sought after destinations.A lived-in, weather-warmed city, the Algerian capital is home to some of the most exuberant, playful art deco architecture anywhere in the world. Yet the boulevards of this Mediterranean Paris are also lined with mosques and minarets, notably the 17th century Fishermen’s Mosque, as well as neo-Moorish delights such as the Grande Poste.
The casbah – “a masterpiece of architecture and town planning” according to Le Corbusier – remains one of the world’s most mythical labyrinths, its huddled houses tumbling down the hill-side before seemingly spilling over into the sea.
It was here that the citizens of Algiers fought and out-thought the French during the War of Independence and it is here that we will eat and drink with the local families and learn about the history and architecture of this most extra-ordinary labyrinth of houses, mosques and workshops.
We stay near the casbah either in one of Algeria’s earliest art deco hotels overlooking the port (and inaugurated by Charlie Chaplin!) or high above the bay of Algiers in the capital’s most historic residence, which served as Eisenhower’s headquarters during World War II.
Day 1
Arrive Algiers. Transfer to hotel in central Algiers followed by orientation tour and dinner in former hamman.
Day 2
Walking tour of central Algiers including esplanade (panoramic views of port, art deco Hotel Safir, National Assembly, neo-Moorish Prefecture), Place des Martyrs (situated at the foot of the casbah and housing 17th century El Djedid Mosque) followed by Place Emir Abdelkader (with famous statue in honour of the founder of Algerian nation) and Grande Poste (Algiers’ quintessential neo-Moorish building, adorned with minarets, triple arches and a huge cupola). Afternoon in the UNESCO-designated casbah meeting locals followed by evening meal in private courtyard.
Day 3
Whole-day excursion to the Tombeau de la Chrétienne (royal mausoleum of Mauritania, one of North Africa’s most enigmatic archaeological survivals), Tipasa (UNESCO World Heritage site bordering the Mediterranean adorned with a Roman amphitheatre, 4th century basilica, forum, old port and delightful museum) followed by Bastion 23 (Ottoman Palais des Rais converted into art and architecture museum).
Day 4
Whole-day in the casbah (led by local guide) examining history and architecture including lunch in private home and visits to mosque and Museum of Arts and Crafts.
Day 5
Monument to the Fallen (constructed in 1982 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Algerian war of independence against France), Museum of the Liberation, Museum of Fine Arts (one of the Mediterranean’s great “undiscovered” art galleries with work by Algerian painters and canvasses by Pissarro, Gauguin and Monet) followed by return flight
