It was thanks to Algerian photographer friends that I made my first journey to Algeria, Tunisia’s sister country. The trip lasted three weeks, each devoted to a different city: first Béjaïa, then Algiers, and finally Oran. It is this last stage, the one that marked me most deeply, that I want to tell you about today.
The journey between Algiers and Oran made me realise the scale of this country. But the moment I set foot in Oran, something shifted. A particular gentleness, almost maternal, seemed to float in the air.
It was not simply the climate, but an atmosphere: soothing, enveloping, as though the city itself welcomed you with a mother’s smile. It brought back childhood memories of summers spent in Spain, especially Alicante, where the same Mediterranean charm prevailed, made of light and slowness.
Day after day, Oran gradually revealed its face to me: an authenticity without pretence and a complete absence of aggression. I remember my night walks, so peaceful that the murmur of the wind could be heard. I genuinely felt safe. Seeing women walking alone late at night, relaxed and confident, said a great deal about the respect woven into everyday life here.
Then there is the Spanish imprint, tangible everywhere. Take the Fort of Santa Cruz, watching over the city from its hill. From up there the panorama is astonishing: land and sea merge, almost embracing beneath the centuries-old gaze of the fortress.
The architecture tells a story too. Oran is a fascinating, slightly anarchic mixture of styles and periods. Walking through the city, you encounter magnificent Art Deco buildings, even though many carry the marks of time: faded façades, electric wires like spider webs, heterogeneous additions. Yet this imperfection has its own beauty. Every building seems to have a soul, a story to whisper. And between these memory-laden walls, the city breathes through its many green spaces, small havens where people come to catch their breath.
“Oran does not reveal itself all at once. It is discovered step by step, through a gentleness that remains engraved within you long afterwards.”
What moved me most, however, were the city’s hidden treasures. I think of the booksellers, true guardians of memory, who keep their stalls with palpable passion. Searching through their shelves feels like setting out on a hunt for literary treasure.
And how could I not mention the former Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, now transformed into a public library? Walking among those immense shelves, beneath a vault once devoted to the silence of prayer and now to the silence of reading, was magical. For a book lover like me, it felt a little like paradise.