Algiers, the “white”, is said to be founded by Hercules and then became a rich Punic port, then a Berber, then a Roman colony and, during the Ottoman Empire, a refuge for fearsome corsairs, it retains indelible traces in itself of its glorious past and an eclectic style, which makes it unique in its kind.

It is difficult to describe this Mediterranean and exotic Paris, which among the elegant nineteenth-century palaces, white of lime and decorated with wrought iron arabesques, retains a strong Arab identity, referring to distant echoes of epic Barbary privateers. Perched on a sloping ground that opens in a continuous up and down to the crescent of the port, it contains in the white Kasbah dating back to the 16th century, much of its charm and mystery, in the maze intricate with steep alleys, stairways, arches, pitches, craft shops, Ottoman palaces and ancient mosques.