Béjaïa: the bay of sirens on the Algerian Mediterranean

At the foot of Mount Gouraya, Béjaïa overlooks the Mediterranean with a bay that ancient Greek legend associates with sirens.

The center, on the bay linked by legend to sirens, can be comfortably visited on foot.

The Casbah of Béjaïa, a fortress citadel of Berber and later Ottoman origin, dominates the historic port with narrow alleys and white houses.

A few minutes away, Gouraya National Park, which overlooks the sea directly from a limestone mountain, hosts magot monkeys in the wild.

Continuing along the coast, you reach Cape Carbon, a lighthouse built on a cliff among the highest in the Mediterranean, with a view over the entire gulf of Béjaïa.

Toward evening, the old port animates fish restaurants with a view of the bay where, according to Homer, Ulysses landed fleeing from the sirens.

Béjaïa was an important center for the transmission of Arab mathematics to Europe: Italian mathematician Fibonacci studied there as a young man, later introducing to Europe the Arabic numerals system he had learned in this very city.

Gouraya National Park is home to one of North Africa's most important populations of Barbary macaques, endangered primates that live freely on the cliffs above the city, often visible from the most popular trails.