Libya

Hyeeeeee !

We are now halfway through our journey. I can hardly believe it !! L
For the people who can’t remember which countries we’ve visited, we made a sketch of the road we've already travelled.

The previous weeks we stayed in European countries, but 2 days ago we flew to another continent…. AFRICA !
Tsamina mina eh eh
Waka Waka eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa

Africa has always been my favourite continent, so I’m very happy we’ve added African countries to our trip. At this moment we are in Libya, the third largest country of Africa which is situated in the Maghreb region of North Africa. We landed in Tripoli which is the capital of Libya and also the largest city in the country. This city includes the Port of Tripoli and a large commercial and manufacturing centre. It’s also the site of the vast Bab al-Azizia barracks, which served as the main base for the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. During the Battle of Tripoli on August 2011 it was surrounded by anti-Gaddafi forces and was bombed by the NATO jets

There is certainly an impact of the terrorism on the tourism industry in the state which is very normal when the whole population is still armed. They have pistols, machine guns and grenades, but according to them it’s not dangerous. (huh ?) We felt anything, but safe !!! We tried to take a picture from it, but that wasn’t a good idea. They started shouting at us, so we decided to put our camera away.  We had definitely no idea what they were saying, but  we were very  sure this wasn’t a friendly greeting…  :p For our own safety we decided to leave the place and visit another area.

Nowadays Libya is trying to promote tourism and to attract the Western tourists (good idea), because the country has a lot of impressive archaeological sites.

We were on our way to the Green Square, but we went wrong,  so we didn’t know anymore how to reach the Square. Our only option was asking the way to a passer-by, which was not really efficient after our experience with some citizens. We mustered our courage and asked someone to show the way to the Green Square. To our astonishment, the old man was very friendly AND he understood English !!! He showed us the right way and moreover he gave us also some information about the square. He told us that it was originally constructed by Italian colonies and that’s the reason why the original name was “Piazza Italia” It features the Red Caste museum, the national museum of Libya and also known as “the Maydān ash-Shuhadā”. (Hilarious when Jolien tried to pronounce it ! :p)  In the 1950s, there was also the Royal Miramare Theatre, but it was demolished by Gaddafi’s government after the 1960s to create more space. When we arrived at the square, we could finally admire the Red Castle. It was much bigger than we expected and around the Castle there were also some classical statues and fountains.

In the photo below you can see the Green Square with the Red Castle on the left side.

I look forward to the next days !

Adios !

Elke x