While the capital Algiers failed to impress, we found ourselves delighted with the city of Constantine, and very much enjoyed having the excavated antique cities from the Golden Age of the Roman Empire de facto all to ourselves. Save for the knowledgeable and enthusiastic private guides who enlightened us with stories and insights. For a bridge engineer that Mirek was his whole working life Constantine, called the City of Bridges, certainly delivered. With its diverse historical bridges traversing the wide and deep gorge of Rhumel River and also spanning many centuries of engineering feats it is definitely a memorable place even for non engineers.
In antiquity, the city was originally called Cirta and served as the capital of the North African Berber kingdom of Numidia. Yeah, the same dude who gave the name to Constantinopolis Byzantium — Constantinople — Istanbul.
Their father was surprise, surprise… Constantius I. But there is another name that is associated with this city and widely painted over the store fronts and hotels and that is of Jugurtha. To our embarrassment I must admit that we were initially somewhat surprised that yoghurt was so widely sold and advertised in Algeria.
Finally we were enlightened to the fact that Jugurtha was actually a famous Berber king of Numidia. I kid you not when I tell you that after Jugurtha was murdered in Rome, he was succeeded by his half-brother Gouda. The city of Constantine went through a lot of hands, and many were pretty rough e. Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottoman Turks and French all influenced and intermingled with the indigenous Berber population.
After more than modest accommodations throughout Algeria and limited sustenance of bananas and power bars in the North due to strict Ramadan closures our one night of indulgence in luxurious Sheraton hotel was cherished to the max. Being the only foreign guests we were upgraded and coddled.
