THE CONSTANTINOIS - IN THE LAND OF CIRTA Roman Algeria in Constantine · Tiddis · Skikda · Hippone · Guelma · Djemila · Timgad

The morning breaks over Tiddis, clinging to a mountainside, thirty kilometers from Constantine. Little known, rarely visited, this ancient Roman citadel perched at the entrance to the Khreneg gorges was the outpost tasked with protecting Cirta from incursions from the north. Its position is striking: natural terraces tiered on ochre rock, cisterns carved directly into the stone, Libyan inscriptions still legible on certain blocks. Here, the Roman presence overlays much older Numidian and Berber strata.

Late in the morning, we head down to the coast. Skikda — the ancient Roman Rusicade — opens onto the Gulf of Numidia with its deep blue waters and wooded cliffs. The afternoon is a well-deserved break: lunch of grilled fish facing the sea, then relaxation on the Stora beaches. The Mediterranean here is not a backdrop — it is a breath, a counterpoint of light and salt after two days of canyon and stone.

From Skikda, the road hugs the coast eastward to Annaba — the ancient Hippo Regius, one of the great cities of Roman Africa. It was here that Saint Augustine, bishop from 396 until his death in 430, wrote The City of God and the Confessions, two texts that would shape Western Christian thought for centuries.

The morning is devoted to the Hippo site: the Basilica of Peace, baptistry, theater, forum, baths and archaeological museum. The ensemble is less spectacular than Timgad or Djemila, but charged with a particular depth — here, the stones have a soul. Fish lunch by the waterfront.

In the afternoon, a trip up to Séraïdi, a village perched in the wooded heights of the Edough massif, with the complex designed by architect Fernand Pouillon and a panoramic view over Annaba Bay and the Mediterranean.

Guelma, the ancient Calama, asserts itself immediately with its Roman theatre from the 3rd century — one of the best preserved in Algeria, financed according to inscriptions by the priestess Annia Aelia Restituta who spent 400,000 sesterces there for the pleasure of her fellow citizens. The adjoining museum houses fine collections of coins, bronzes and statues unearthed in excavations in the region.

The surprise of the day is just a few kilometers away: Hammam Meskhoutine and its springs gushing at 90°C — the Romans, who already came there for their therapeutic properties, called them Aqua Tibatanae. The setting is strange and mesmerizing: the limestone, sculpted by centuries of mineral accumulation, has produced fanciful forms that water vapor makes almost unreal. Discovery stop before heading back on the road to Sétif, base of the Djemila stage.

At 900 meters altitude, in the secret fold of mountains that the Romans deemed worthy of a city, Djemila — the ancient Cuicul — is perhaps the finest surprise of the circuit. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982, it displays over 42 hectares a Roman urbanism remarkably adapted to mountain topography: streets that follow contour lines, squares that open onto breathtaking panoramas.

The visit unfolds at the pace it deserves: the Arch of Caracalla which marks the northern entrance, the old forum and the new, the great thermal baths, the Christian basilica, the 4th-century baptistery with its basin still standing. The museum, finally, whose walls are entirely covered with mosaics of exceptional fineness and variety.

Lunch on site before resuming the journey to Batna.

The day begins on the Aurès plain with a vision that emerges from nowhere: the mausoleum of Medghassen, a cylindrical Numidian tomb from the 3rd century BC, the oldest preserved royal monument in North Africa. Sixty Doric columns encircle this silent tumulus which medieval Arab historians attribute to a king named Madghis. It has been there for twenty-three centuries, imperceptibly, facing the first ridges of the Aurès.

Then Timgad. Founded in the year 100 by the emperor Trajan for his veteran legionnaires, the colony of Thamugadi was buried under sand for centuries before being rediscovered in 1765 by British explorer James Bruce. Its grid layout — two main axes, a central forum, thermal baths, a public library, a theatre carved into the hillside — is stunningly legible. You stroll through it like a living city whose inhabitants disappeared the day before. In a shop in the forum, an inscription sums up the art of Roman living: "Hunting, bathing, playing, laughing — that is living."

Late in the afternoon, a short excursion to Lambèse / Tazoult, the former camp of the IIIrd legion Augusta which defended the southern frontier of the empire. Dinner upon return to Timgad.

Road to Constantine in the morning. A few free hours in the City of Bridges: one last Moorish coffee on the Rock, last souvenirs to take back, a stroll through the medina.

Constantine remains. As it has always resisted — to oblivion, to erosion, to time.

Lunch before the transfer to Mohamed Boudiaf airport.