All direct flights to Algeria from the UK & Ireland

Destination summary

The second largest country in Africa has survived its combustible past more or less intact. Formerly a French colony, Algeria was gripped by a vicious civil war that began in the 1990s and ran into the first years of the 21st century; it's a sign of how ethnically diverse and hotly contested the nation has been that some eighteen different languages are spoken in this region, and over the decades, many of those have been keen to make themselves heard the loudest. Nonetheless, to paraphrase the old Algerian proverb lahna yegleb laghna, peace will always win out.
What's been left behind is a distinctly cultured destination, a country that has sought to preserve (rather than deny) its links with former rulers France, however painful that process may be. There's no greater sign of this than in the capital Algiers, the largest and most cosmopolitan city, and commonly known as Algier la blanche ('Algiers the White') on account of its blanched domiciles stretching for along the Mediterranean coast. Travellers here find mosques and museums, as well as the living museum of the Casbah, established in the 16th century as a palace of the deys, and latterly a place of plentiful bartering and people-watching.
Outside of the capital, Algiers' second city Oran is best known as being the birthplace of rai music, the indigenous folk that has brought such performers as Chad Mami to prominence in the West; the French influence is evident in the grand Cathedral de Sacre-Coeur.
Batna, meanwhile, is a former fortress town - its name translating as 'where we sleep tonight' - turned cultural retreat: situated between the Atlas mountains, at the heart of a thriving agricultural region, it's blessed with cinemas and theatres. Close by lie the Roman ruins of Timgad and Lambaesis, still-striking attempts to impose some order upon the shifting sands of the Sahara.