Algeria

For some staggering history, a striking blend of cultures, and evocative—even otherworldly—vistas, it only takes an easy flight across the Mediterranean from Europe to see Algeria, the largest country in Africa.

History buffs, for one thing, will thrill at a geography marinated in thousands of years of human endeavor. From the nomadic Tuareg of the desert backcountry to the mighty trading empires of the Mediterranean Basin, Algeria (a predominantly Muslim country today) has seen a grand pageantry of ethnic groups sharing and contesting its borders. Everyone from the Phoenicians and the Romans to the Turks and the French have held sway at one time or another, always against a backdrop of indigenous Berber culture.

The beautiful city of Algiers—a hop, skip, and a jump from Spain—serves as an ideal launchpad for exploring local culture and heritage, not least in its vintage mosques and basilicas. Outside the capital, Tassili n’Ajjer National Park protects more than 15,000 rock paintings and engravings on the sandstone cliffs of the Saharan plateau; the oldest date from the Neolithic, while the most recent—created in the early centuries A.D.—depict the domestication of camels and horses. While on the Mediterranean coastline there are several outstanding sites of Classical ruins, foremost among them perhaps Tipasa: Here, Phoenician, Roman, and Byzantine structures overlap with relics of native civilizations, including the famous Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania.

Algeria—more than three times the size of Texas—not only encodes great swaths of this history, but packs in an awful lot of scenery, from the heights of the Atlas Mountains and the Saharan highlands to giant dune fields and balmy Mediterranean lowlands. Algeria’s enormous share of the Sahara Desert includes such astonishing landmarks as the Ahaggar, toothy desert peaks that culminate in 9,541-foot Mount Tahat, and a pair of sprawling “sand seas,” or ergs: the Grand Erg Occidental and Grand Erg Oriental. Ahaggar National Park showcases the ethereal splendor of the Hoggar, providing habitat for such striking creatures as the nearly extinct Saharan cheetah; also included in the park’s bounds is the hermitage-topped summit of Assekrem.

Given Algeria’s vast geographic sweep and multicultural makeup, the country’s a fine place to “tuck in”: The cuisine reflects broad Arab-Berber cookery traditions of the Maghreb and the Sahara, as well as distinctive regional specialties. Algeria's homegrown grains (which once nourished Ancient Rome) can be tasted in everything from couscous to the native flatbread called kesra. Fruits such as figs and dates have long been important foods harvested from Mediterranean orchards and Saharan oases, while lamb and chicken are widely used meats for dishes such as kefta meatballs or chorba stew.

From the lively marketplaces of Algiers to the red canyons of the Ahaggar, Algeria presents a striking spectrum of people, places, and experiences. For a hardy and open-minded visitor, it’s a marvelously deep well to dive in.