JOURNEY TO NOSTOS

Week 20 — Annaba to Algiers

From Greek endurance to imperial coastline

Route
Annaba → Skikda → Jijel coast → Béjaïa → Tipasa → Algiers

Endpoint: Algiers
(Sets up the final western arc toward Oran, Morocco, and the Pillars.)

7 days • 3 bases • long-coast week • mountain–sea compression

At a glance

Bases
Skikda (1) • Béjaïa (3) • Algiers (3)

Hellenic anchors

Hippo Regius (memory carried west) • Béjaïa (Saldae) • Tipasa (Greek substrate beneath Rome)

How to use this week

This week is about coastal compression—mountains pressing the sea, cities tightening, and settlement becoming increasingly engineered.
Enter from Annaba or use this as a standalone study of why Rome builds where Greeks once paused.

Prologue — When the Coast Narrows

Between Annaba and Algiers, the Mediterranean loses its breadth.
Mountains advance. Headlands tighten. Harbours become deliberate acts rather than natural gifts.

Greek settlement thins here not because the sea is hostile, but because the coast demands scale and organisation. Rome answers that demand. This week reads the moment where Hellenic intelligence gives way to imperial infrastructure—without disappearing entirely.

Route logic

Progressive compression • mountain–sea alternation • one major site only • recovery days built in

Day by day

Day 1 — Annaba → Skikda

Overnight: Skikda

Focus
Leaving the Greek endurance zone.

Hellenic layer
Skikda marks the fading edge of Greek settlement continuity.

Do one thing properly
Harbour orientation.
Early night.

Day 2 — Skikda → Jijel coast

Overnight: Jijel (or Ziama Mansouriah)

Focus
The coast turns vertical.

Hellenic layer
Coves and caves over poleis—navigation replaces settlement.

Do one thing properly
Choose one coastal cave or headland only.
Long sea-edge sit.

Day 3 — Jijel → Béjaïa (Saldae)

Overnight: Béjaïa

Focus
Arrival at a true hinge city.

Hellenic layer
Saldae as a Greek name carried forward into Roman form.

Do one thing properly
Bay walk at arrival light.
No sites yet.

Day 4 — Béjaïa (Gouraya landscape)

Overnight: Béjaïa

Focus
Mountain and sea as one system.

Hellenic layer
Greek coastal intelligence adapted to extreme terrain.

Do one thing properly
One ridge or headland walk.
Return to the sea.

Day 5 — Béjaïa (no long driving)

Overnight: Béjaïa

Focus
Stillness before the capital.

Hellenic layer
Repetition as knowledge.

Do one thing properly
Repeat a walk from Day 3 at a different hour.

Day 6 — Béjaïa → Algiers

Overnight: Algiers

Focus
Entering scale.

Hellenic layer
Greek traces dissolve into Roman and later urban mass.

Do one thing properly
Evening Kasbah edge walk only.
Stop early.

Day 7 — Tipasa → Algiers

Overnight: Algiers

Focus
Temple-to-sea clarity.

Hellenic layer
Tipasa preserves Greek substrate beneath Roman monumentality.

Do one thing properly
One slow circuit at Tipasa.
Return to Algiers for a final harbour dusk.

Navigation

← Previous Week — Annaba (Hippo Regius)
Next Week → Algiers to Oran
Back to North Africa — Weeks 15–20

Optional: the long-form read

In the manuscript, this week becomes a study of coastal compression—how terrain, power, and scale reshape settlement without erasing earlier intelligence. (Paid)

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