Timgad Algeria Roman Ruins

 

Timgad is one of the best examples of roman city planning with a grid layout. These ruins are fairly big with the city originally designed for 15,000 people.

Djémila Algeria Roman Ruins

Djemila is a 4 hour drive to the east of Algiers. It's on the way to Constantine, which is a popular tourist destination here for the tourists who venture to Algeria.

Rome Italy

 

Rome is a 2 hour direct flight from Algiers, so it's a good place to get away for a week or a weekend. Here's a belated blog post full of photos from a couple of weeks ago.

Tipaza Algeria

 

This is the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, which is the tomb where the Numidian Berber King Juba II (son of Juba I of Numidia) and the Queen Cleopatra Selene II, sovereigns of Numidia and Mauretania Caesariensis, were allegedly buried. However, their human remains have not been found at the site, perhaps due to tomb raiding.

Archaeological Paphos Cyprus

The Paphos Archaeological Park and Tombs of the Kings are two great outdoor sites in Paphos that are definitely worth visiting if you're there. They're sizable park areas for walking around by the coast and checking out the ruins up close.

You can generally walk all over and even inside a lot of it including the tombs. The Archaeological Park has many preserved mosaics with a building built over them along with some that were left outside. I've seen such mosaics in museums but it's interesting to imagine the ancient houses over them in their original locations by the sea.

Athens Greece

I spent the transition to 2016 in Athens Greece. I was fighting a cold the whole time but it was still a great trip to see yet another city and country I've never been. I read a lot about the Greek mythologies when I was young so I always dreamed of seeing the Acropolis, Parthenon, and various temples built for those ancient gods. It's always amazing to be in places with such a long history of civilization and sense of time. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

Rome and Florence Italy

I assumed at some point in life we would travel to Europe and visit Rome. We looked at flights and prices from the U.S. several times and it always seemed so far and too expensive. A nice benefit of joining the Foreign Service is moving closer to other places we've always wanted to visit. We finally went to Rome for a week and it was just a 3 hour flight from Stockholm.

Rome was a bit more crowded, faster, and aggressive than Stockholm. It was also warmer and brighter than the shorter daytime we're experiencing in Sweden. During the off season for tourists is a great time to visit Rome since I can't imagine visiting there in the heat and crowds of summer. It was crowded enough for us this time of year. The weather was great for a light jacket in the morning to take off during the day and the rain on a few days didn't slow us down much.

We visited the Capuchin Crypt and Sistine Chapel but weren't allowed to take pictures at either of them. I posted some pictures from my phone on Facebook for family and friends but these are pictures our daughter took with a better camera. She took a gazillion of them so I'm just posting a select few. I'm sure they're still too many. Click on them for bigger pics.