Tripoli continues to be one of the most beautiful cities along the Mediterranean Sea. The seaside promenade in the modern part is impressive, but perhaps a little bit sterile. Sterility is good and bad in Tripoli, at the same time. Commercials are not choking its charm, but there could have been more activity going on.
Tripoli has a friendly, where the merchants are almost not aiming at selling souvenirs to foreigners. If it was possible, the Libyans here are even friendlier than Libyans in general, and they are not going for your money. This has to do with Libya's economy being far better than in the poorer neighbor countries, but not so heaped up those old traditions have lost its true content.
The Jamahiriya Museum in the heart of Tripoli is an excellent museum in all respects. Both the exhibits and the presentation make this one of the finest museums in the world. The museum ranges from Neolithic ages until the modern age, across 47 galleries on 4 floors. With such a size, and the apparent similarity between very different times and cultures, it may either be a swift run-through or a two or three day delight.
The ground level shows a quick journey through several periods, from 300,000 years back in time to the green VW Beetle of the young Gadhafi. The exhibit crosses through rock art and pottery up to 10,000 years old until Roman times. Among the most impressive exhibits is the fantastic mausoleum from Ghirza (top photo), a state independent from Rome, yet culturally influenced. There are also exhibits from the Garamantian Empire (see Germa) and Slonta, everything of vital importance to a complete impression of Libyan culture and history.
In Gallery 6 is the Phoenician exhibition, which is particularly interesting because of this period's importance and its near non-existence across Libyan sites. Phoenician culture rings more of a bell, telling that Carthage (now Tunisia) was part of this. The most impressive gallery of the museum is probably the Roman. It is dominated by superb statues, most having been taken from Leptis Magna. Oea (same location as modern Tripoli) and Sabratha are also represented, then mainly with mosaics. The 1st floor covers the transition from Roman, through the Christian Byzantine to the Islamic era. The 2nd floor shows Islamic culture. Passing on to the 3rd floor, exhibits become drastically less impressive than the ground floor, but instead you get great impressions of daily life for the average person, showing things like a Turkish kitchen, clothes and artifacts of the different peoples of Libya. The 4th floor is mainly dedicated to modern Libyan history, including whole galleries showing nothing but pictures of Gadhafi.
The castle of Tripoli, known as Assai al-Hamra, has been the fortress of many lords of this region through the centuries. It was briefly the stronghold of Christian knights in the 16th century, only to be expelled by Muslim pirates. It is assumed that the first fortress was built in the 7th century, to protect against the Muslim Arab invasion of Libya.
At least until the 17th century, it appears that all sides of the fortress were surrounded by water. Much of the present structure dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries, although extensive reconstruction work was performed in the early 20th century. Much of the fortress is today used by the Jamahiriya Museum.
Medina is the Arabic word for town, and suuq for market. The two mixes in Old Tripoli, as in other cities and towns in this part of the world. Tripoli's medina, the part of the city that lies inside the old city walls and out to the Mediterranean Sea, is clearly the most appealing part of town, although it is not even nearly as fine as medinas of Tunisia. The medina houses a few sites of Tripoli that are described in each their article, especially the Gurgi Mosque, the Karamanli House and the Aurelian Arch.
The suuqs are of some interest, as a few shops continue to produce handicrafts and necessities according to old traditions. More and more, however, the items sold in the suuqs are industrially produced. Across the media, there are many remains of the European presence in Tripoli. Since European tradesmen and states built their own houses, some of the finest buildings of the medina are largely of European origin.
Marcus Aurelius Arch
Very, very little survives of the Roman town Oea. The four-pillared arch of Marcus Aurelius from ca. 164 CE is virtually the only exception to this. To a large extent, the arch served as entrance to the city. It was the only one of Oea. The arch contains fine decorations, showing Apollo and Minerva. Now-empty niches contained statues of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
Mosques in Old Town
The Gurgi Mosque is quite a different mosque, with its happy floral decorations, especially on the minbar. Apart from that, it lends heavily from Turkish mosques, although it employs largely Tunisian ceramic work. It was completed in 1833, built by the command of the naval captain Mustafa Gurgi. Gurgi is of Egyptian Arabic, meaning "From Georgia". Gurgi and his family's tombs are in the antechamber, in from the door to the right of the minbar. It has an octagonal minaret, which is unusual for Tripoli. Although the mosque is quite small in size, but still has as much as 16 domes, 4 by 4 above the prayer hall (lower photo shows one of the domes).There are no large and impressive mosques in Tripoli's medina, but several are quite attractive.
The Karamanli Mosque is the largest mosque in the medina, built in 1738, and located to the main area of the medina, right in from the Green Square and behind Tripoli Castle. Its prayer hall is roofed by 25 domes, and it has 5 doorways. Look out for the balconies on 3 sides of the prayer hall. The mosque has some of the finest woodwork in all of Libya. The Dragut Mosque was built by nothing less than pirate, a highly successful one, Dragut who died in 1565. Its small scale is mainly a result of Dragut's early death (age 51), as well as poor reconstruction after World War 2. Dragut is buried in the mosque. The Mosque of Sidi Salem, with a cylindrical minaret is among the oldest, dating back to the 15th century.
The Sidi Abdul Wahab Mosque feels almost lost where it now lies, outside the city walls and dwarfed by the modern sea port. There are more mosques around the medina, the Othman Pasha Mosque, an-Naga Mosque, the Mahmud Mosque, the Dorouj Mosque, the Sidi Salem Mosque and the Kharrouba Mosque.
Karamanli Palace
This is close to a palace of Tripoli, dating back to the early 19th century, built by Yusuf Karamanli. Some rooms on the 1st floor have been turned into exhibits with dolls acting out everyday life. The Karamanli family ruled Tripoli through most of 18th and half way through the 19th century. With their fall, the house became consulate for the Italian state of Tuscany.
Italian Cathedral
The cathedral in centre of modern Tripoli is now longer a cathedral; rather it was converted into a mosque in 1970. It has been largely rebuilt in recent years. The original church was completed in 1928.
Janzur Museum
Janzur is a get-away for people in Tripolis, and is to some extent also a possible resort for casual visitors. Janzur has a nice beach, a slightly sterile tourist village, which at times has a friendly and open atmosphere thanks to the high number of Libyans coming out here, especially in the weekends. The sight of Janzur, the 200 year old mosque, is alone not worth the detour.Facilities here cover the more modern needs of people, sailing, tennis, cinema, shops, and children's play rooms. All in all, Janzur makes sense as a place to get away from bustling big town.
Sabratha
In Roman times the Tripolitania province had three cities, called Tripoli, Leptis Magna, Oea (now the modern Tripoli) and Sabratha. Sabratha was to a large extent the one with least wealth, yet there are structures here that give a lot of sense to the idea of visiting it. Sabratha was constructed in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, but it did survive longer than its big brother, Leptis Magna. As is the case with many ancient cities in North Africa, it was the arrival of the Arabs that resulted in the final decline.
The theater is the main attraction, and it appears in excellent condition today. It is even used now as an arena for theater and concerts. Sabratha has several public baths, temples, fountains, mosaics. The museum is a must, and has an extensive exhibition of everything from statues to small coins.
The town of Sabratha has grown up in between the ruins, adding a special charm to the place. Passing through Sabratha, form the town, you end up at the long beaches, making Sabratha an excellent place to stay for a couple of days.
Leptis Magna
Leptis Magna has deservedly earned a reputation of having the most complete and impressive Roman ruins in the entire North Africa. Leptis Magna was originally a Berber settlement, where after the Phoenicians made it into a trading point. From the 6th century BC Leptis Magna was probably subdued by Carthage. It became part of the Roman empire in 111 BC. While the setting of Leptis Magna cannot compete with what is found in eastern Libya, the harbor area is still very nice, together with Wadi Labna, even if it is almost filled with sand now. It is much because of the sand that Leptis Magna is so well preserved, for 800 years the site was entirely protected by it. At the most Leptis Magna can have had as much as 80,000 inhabitants, and its splendor profited from the love the emperor Septimus Severus (193-211) felt for his native town. Much of the best at the present site dates back to this period. The town had a steady base of income from slave trade, gold, ivory, metals, plus agriculture which was richer in those days.
The number of great monuments of Leptis Magna makes it a bit difficult to point out highlights. But the theatre is clearly one, and it has a splendid view from its upper tiers. Its diameter is 70 meters. Large parts of the structure have kept on to its ornamentation, and in the theatre there are many statues left. The Hadrianic Baths are still impressive, and one of the pools, measuring 28 times 15 meter, remains intact. This bath house was one of the largest that ever was built outside Rome itself. The circus, near a kilometer away from the main site, remains still only partly excavated. With its size of 450 times 100 meters it was one of the very largest in the entire Roman world. And it is the only of its kind in Libya today. Nobody should miss out on the important museum of Leptis Magna, now open.
Villa Sillin
The villa was discovered in the 1950s and excavated in the 1970s. It covers 800 square meters of exquisite mosaics. The building is not truly Byzantine, with some late Christian elements and an African round design. The mosaic workers would have been all African.The mosaics inside the 47 rooms are amazing, with intricate detail and lovely colors, showing symmetrical patterns, pygmies with flowers, crocodiles, birds, Greek mythology, shields, animals & hunters, hippodrome sports, chariots & horse riders, dolphins in a pool, muses & maenads with Bacchus, images from Trojan war, Treton abducting a nymph, raging bull fight. This destination is actually just what the name indicates; a villa. But being of 20 rooms, adorned like no other building from ancient times in North Africa, this is a must-see for a Libya tour.
The villa belongs to Byzantine times, and was as a leisure home for one of Leptis Magna's wealthiest families.Every floor has its own unique mosaics. Many show human figures, which are bordered by intricate patterns. Most walls have frescoes of humans and pastoral scenes.Walls of the baths are in marble.The experience continues out into the garden, which faces the sea. Even here, there are beautiful mosaics.The villa is still undergoing restoration, but you can arrange for a permit to visit from Leptis Magna.