Oran

Oran is Algeria's second city and its most Mediterranean: a port on a wide bay, founded by Andalusian merchants in 903, held by Spain for most of three centuries and rebuilt by France with the boulevards and belle-époque façades of the Front de Mer that look down on the harbour from a cliff. Above it all, on the mountain of Murdjadjo, the Spanish fort of Santa Cruz of 1577 and the chapel built beside it after the cholera of 1849 hold the whole bay; below, the Place du 1er Novembre has the theatre of 1907, the town hall guarded by two bronze lions and the cathedral of the Sacred Heart, now a library; west of it, Sidi El Houari is the old town of the Spanish and the Ottoman beys — the Pasha mosque of 1796, the Porte d'Espagne, the bey's palace, the lanes going down to the port. Oran is where raï was born, in the cabarets and the wedding halls, and Cheb Khaled's city; Camus set The Plague here; and the minaret of the Grand Mosque of 2015 rises a hundred and four metres over the eastern districts.

The traveller walks the Front de Mer at dusk, when the harbour lights come on and the families come out, and takes a table at a seafront café; climbs to Santa Cruz — by the cable car when it runs, or a taxi to the top — for the fort, the chapel and the bay from Mers el-Kébir to the eastern point; walks the Place du 1er Novembre and the streets around it for the theatre, the lions and the cathedral-library; goes down through Sidi El Houari with someone who knows it, for the mosque, the gate and the old Spanish stones; eats karantika from a paper cone and grilled sardines by the port; finds the raï, in a cabaret in Medina Jdida or a concert if the season has one; and, in summer, joins the city on the beaches of Aïn El Turck and Les Andalouses, half an hour west.

The Guide's honesty: Algeria asks for a visa obtained in advance and gives, in return, a country almost without tourists — Oran is easy, warm and curious about visitors, and the traveller who speaks some French will be adopted; the city is safe by day and lively by night on the main streets, and Sidi El Houari is better with a local at your side; the raï is real and happens late, in places a hotel concierge may not recommend — ask a young Oranese instead; the ferry from Alicante makes it the closest Algerian city to Europe, and the airport is well served; the beaches west are the city's summer and are crowded in August; and the Spanish forts, the French boulevards and the Algerian present sit on top of each other here without apology, which is the reason to come.