Tripoli, the capital of Libya, not to be confused with Tripoli in the Lebanon, is in the North West of Libya and lies on the Mediterranean. This page covers a variety visits and includes parts, times and dates from different journeys when we used the city as a departure point for visits to Leptis Magna or Sabratha, or when I was just killing time whilst waiting to catch a plane from Tripoli to Europe or back to the oil refinery in Brega.

In January 2003, during Eid al Hadda we traveled via Tripoli to Leptis Magna or Lepta, the ancient Greek and Roman settlement sixty kilometers east of Tripoli.  The omens were not good for this trip as the weather was stormy where we were starting out from, the oil refinery in Brega on the Gulf of Sirte as there were storms ahead at out intended destination, all around Tripoli and the north-western coast.   However, we were not deterred and as we walked across the Tarmac to board the F28, the company jet, the drizzle dissipated and a rainbow hovered over the desert.  I took this to be a good portent.

When we landed in Tripoli the weather was thankfully fine and bright.  We made our way to the company bus and established that the driver had a relative who was a taxi driver and he would drive us to Lepta that afternoon but first we decided we needed some time in Tripoli.  First I e-mailed home from a charming Internet café where all the computer booths were made with mock classical Doric columns in the ancient Greek style.  Then we ate lunch from a grubby ma'tam at a table on the street.  We ate grilled chicken, lamb chops, bread and a yoghurt dip flavoured with cumin.  The food was tasty, plentiful and  cheap at seven dinars for the both of us.  There seemed to be a lot of disreputable and dysfunctional people about and it reminded me of Brixton where the care in the community unfortunates meld into the crowd of ranters and ravers who rub shoulders with 'hands free mobiles' mutterers who talk to them selves.  A nascent fight started but petered out several times and the Arabic equivalent of " it's not worth it" and "leave it out mate," filled the street with tense energy

We decided we would come back to the medina at a later date  so we went to meet our driver and we left Tripoli and set off for Leptis  calling first at The Villa Siline and the Leptis Amphitheater.

Months later during March 2003 we visited the ancient Roman settlement Sabratha, a hundred  kilomtres from Tripoli.  It had not been my plan to visit Sabratha but as British Airways had refused change our tickets we ended up being stuck in Tripoli with a day to kill.  On Sunday the 9th of March I finally left the refinery xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I had broken a bone in my foot and hurt my knee and three of my teeth had become loose.  I was ready to go home after nearly four months away.  Unfortunately the company jet was being serviced so we had to take the overnight bus to Tripoli where I was hopefully to pick up my airline ticket and my passport which had been stuck in the system waiting for a residence visa to be renewed, hence my delayed return to The UK.  I do not like traveling on long distance buses having fore sworn  them after traveling by bus through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey in seventies.  The overnight nine hour bus journey is a form of hell for me.  Without the soporific benefits of alcohol but with frequent stops and noisy discordant  music played through the bus's loud speakers; sitting in small seats, the crowded bus with xxxxxxxxxx xxxx has all the elements of a nightmare journey. 

We arrived in Tripoli at five thirty on Monday morning when I went to company offices to get my passport.  By eight o'clock the passport was in my hands with  an airline ticket dated for Tuesday 11th.  Naturally enough, having been stuck in the oil refinery for so long I wanted to get home as soon as possible so went to the British Airways office to get my ticket endorsed and changed to a KLM ticket to Amsterdam to enable me to leave that day.  The staff at the British Airways office were singularly unhelpful and refused to assist us.  Instead they reported us to our employers indicating our desire to leave the country one day early.  A typical sneaky trick that I suppose we have come to expect from British Airways.  It was particularly frustrating as I had been stuck in Libya nearly fifty days over my contracted time and I do not think it is any business of my national carrier to interfere with my rights as a British citizen.  It appears that British Airways are so beholden to some companies here they have to ask their permission to allow British subjects to use the tickets they have bought.  This was an act of spite or possibly related to the whole murky area of ticketing, agency kick backs, and inflated ticket prices.  Whenever possible I avoid British Airways like the plague and prefer to travel on any other airline.  The service is chaotic.  They are parsimonious with drinks and the staff unhelpful to the point of being rude.  They are not just parsimonious with drinks but inept: they serve the wine half an hour after the meal. We were kept waiting for two hours then we  gave up and left the Dhat al Imad towers where the BA and other airline offices are located and took a taxi back to the company offices where we had left our bags.  However, the taxi driver tried to overcharge us so we refused to pay and we got out and walked the rest of the way passing through the old medina or the old city: a medieval walled town   This is a sprawling maze of disintegrating building abutting the gold souk and craft market, which themselves are next to the castle and museum on Green square.

It is a very large area which consists of houses, shops and workshops. The medina is located on the old Roman town of which there are still one or two remains.  Entering the the medina from the back we headed for the wax works museum, Qaramanli House which we had located a couple of months before on a  prior trip to Leptis Magna when we had spent a few hours in Tripoli.    The wax works are really mannequins located in an old Turkish house in the heart of the medina.  The splendid historic house was not easy to find even with foreknowledge of its location.  It was originally the family residence of the 18th Century Turkish governor or Pasha who ruled Tripoli, Ahmad Pasha al Qaramanli.  He was the son of a soldier of the  kulughi class, (descendants of  Turkish soldiers and local women).  Ahmad Qaramanli who had seized power in 1711.  Ahmad the elder  was eventually given recognition by the then Sultan of the Ottoman empire whose janissary troops he had slaughtered to gain power.

The house is nearby a crossroads known as the Crossroads of the Four Columns. It is named after the four large pieces of Roman masonry incorporated into buildings on each corner of the crossroads.  The recycling of masonry and sundry building materials was a common practice of the Arabs when building in North Africa.  The interior of the house which is in a good condition and has been renovated has a number of exhibits.  It is built around a courtyard and has galleries with rooms and alcoves on two levels.  The rooms  are furnished with period furniture and manikins of the Qaramanli family in period costume.  Some of the floors are tiled.  There is a large incense burner, musical instruments and room for the use of women.  Manikins in historical clothing indicate this was where women did embroidery.  Another interesting set of manikins show soldiers of the ages who have been through Libya.  They include British Tommies, Roman soldiers, Turkish Janissary  troops and Libyan desert and mountain guerrillas.  We looked at a view of the old city from the upper levels of the house.

The Naga mosque, relatively near the Qaramanli house may have been originally built in 912 AD and the last work and the final construction work was probably done around 1610.  As naga means camel in Arabic the mosque is thought to have been built on the proceeds of camel related wealth paid to or paid by the early Arab invaders in the 9th Century.  This building also has had Roman masonry used in its construction including Roman columns.  The roof of the mosque has 42 domes. Another famous mosque in the Medina is the Ahmad Pasha al Qaramanli mosque which has 25 domes and is tiled on the interior.  The minaret is octagonal which is the Turkish style.  The Dragut mosque, named after the famous pirate Dragut who was 16th century governor of Tripoli, is the largest mosque complex in the medina.  The Gurgi mosque has the tallest minaret in old Tripoli.

After a satisfying afternoon out in Sabratha we returned to the hotel.  I was in a deal of pain due to the injured foot and knee but had bought some pain killers in the odd suburb of Zawia.   That evening, it was still Monday, we went for  a stroll around the immediate area of  Dhat al Imad towers and the Sharia Rashid.  We checked out a number of restaurants in this area.  At one place the manager told us frankly that it was not very good and recommended another restaurant to us!  The Libyans are often frank and honest in this surprising kind of way.  One of the restaurants was at the top of an enormous revolving tower called the Al Fatah Tower.  Although large enough to seats hundreds the restaurant was empty.  The menu was very large but it looked over ambitious to me.  The waiter pressed a button causing the the very large room to start revolving.  It was quite unnerving actually and did not tempt me to eat there.  Anyway we did not have enough money to eat out as I had run out of cash in the previous four months.  It is possible that the view is better than cuisine here and it is worth a visit.  Down below we visited a posh Italian fish restaurant, the Cavalier which looked very good.  But as I say: we visited a number of good quality restaurants but we did not actually eat in them due to shortage of funds.  We went to another modern restaurant almost yuppie in style in one of the four Dhat al Imad towers but instead of eating at any of them we ate on the street near the taxi depot and bus station and had lamb and chicken schwarmas which were very cheap and cost less then a Euro each, about fifty English pence.  We then returned to the hotel for the night. 

The next morning with our flight due in the afternoon we walked to the fish market near the customs shed on the cornich.  Nearby is a new large hotel, supposedly five star, called the Corinthia, which is about two hundred dollars a night.  On one of the large roundabouts between  the hotel and the customs area men were sitting and selling desert truffles, or terfas.  March is the truffle season.  These desert truffles cost about ten to twenty pounds a kilo but unfortunately due to lack of money I could not buy any.  The truffle season lasts only a few weeks so it's a case of grab them when you can. Their Latin name is Terfazia Ovalispora. I buy them whenever I can.  

The fish souk is a thriving little market with about fifty stall displaying a wide range of brilliant fresh fish.  Considering the length of the Mediterranean coast it is surprising how few fishing fleets one sees.   It is possible to buy a fish, pay someone to clean and prepare it and then pay someone to cook it.  I left Richard to his fish and made my way back to Sharia Rasheed for a last schwarmas.  Later we checked out of the hotel and traveled to the airport by taxi for about fifteen dinars.  Whilst waiting there for our flight we bumped into my housemate Barry who had just flown in from Canada and we told him the glad news that the company jet, the F28 was out of service and he would be returning to Brega by bus.  The BA flight left on time and returned to the UK safely. I was in the pub in Brixton by ten o'clock.

Months later in December 2003 I had a few hours to spare waiting for my afternoon flight out so I went downtown to visit the museum and the souks next to the Medina. There is a large gold souk and for people who have not seen the gold souks of Kuwait or Saudi or Dubai the array of precious metal items in shops and stalls is surprising especially as there seems to be little by way of security.  Gold is sold by the gram weight and usually, though not always, having a higher caratage  is softer and more yellow.  Although designs have a certain Arabesque vulgarity it possible to find some nice simple designs.

I bought some small gold camels in the souk in the small town of Ajdabia, so it should be possible to get them in Tripoli.  Next to the gold souk is the handicrafts souk which is a shopping area recognizable as a tourist style souk but it also has lots of interesting items cheaper than Tunisia or Morocco and with non of the hard sell or hassle of Morocco or Tunis.  There are textiles including charming handmade Bedouin rugs with images of goats and camels, ancient carpets, gold and silver jewelry items and lovely cheap Touareg  items in the form of ancient fertility symbols based on a kind of corn doll motif as shown below.

Less than a few minutes walk away from the souks is the Castle and museum complex. Little of the castle seems to be open to the public apart from those parts in use by the museum.

I often visit The Jamahiriya museum.   It is a delightful haven of cool and tranquility compared to the hot streets outside.   Rather like the air-conditioned shopping malls in Bangkok which I visit for the same reason.   At the cheap price of three dinars you can afford to drop in for just a few minutes just to escape the heat.  It also has toilets which are tolerable.  Depending on your personal style of museum visiting you could spend half an hour to half a day there. I'm a half an hour man.   It is very informative regarding the development of life in the area before the Punic times and it  has a wide range of items from the prehistoric era.  It also has fine examples of fossils and petrified wood.  It is not unusual to find beautiful fossils and petrified wood around the oil fields in Zeltan where I worked for a while.  However, the museum is mainly famous for its stunning collection of Roman and Greek statuary and mosaics and funerary architecture.  

The ground floor has a complete Roman mausoleum from fifth century Ghirza  Opposite this ancient construction which seems to contain funeral urns are the mosaic floors from the Roman Villa, The Villa Dar Buk Ammera, outside Zliten. The highly detailed mosaics which used to adorn the floor of the villa by the sea represent all manner of sea creatures.  These images are edged with representational  mosaics showing scenes of gladiatorial combat.  Amongst other items of interest is a statue of Venus from the Hadrianic baths at Leptis Magna.  

As well as original statuary there are numerous ancient Roman copies of BC Greek originals from the Hadrianic baths at Leptis.  The copies include statues of  the athlete Diadomenos originally carved by Praxiteles.  There are also grafted statues with Roman period heads fixed to Greek bodies as is the case with the beautiful museum at Lepta.

In one of the rooms is an interactive map of ancient Libya showing old trade routes and ancient site of interest.  I usually have a play with it to see if it's working.  In another room there are large displays of flint knifes and pottery from prehistoric times and reproductions of rock carvings.  There is also an ancient skeleton.

I wandered into the next room where there is a history of Berber and other ancient tribes of Libya: the people who inhabited the area before the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Christians, Spanish, Normans, Turks and Italians occupied the area:  To name but a few.  It is sad to note from the the large photograph and casts of the mysterious sanctuary at Slontah, which we had visited a the year before, how the original carvings have been eroded.  There is also a photograph of  the Hawa Ftea cave which in the mists of time was used by a community stone age cave men and which, on our return journey from Tobruk, caused us so much grief.  This is the largest cave in North Africa.  The next room deals with the Punic settlements in Libya including items from Leptis Magna.

Most of this ground floor area is also concerned with the Greek period of Libyan history, especially Cyrene.  These include statues of Persephone, wife of Hades and Goddess of the underworld and also a statue of the Roman god of pleasure Dionysus found at Leptis.  It is particularly fascinating and informative  to see these items in a museum having visited Leptis and   Cyrene.

There are a series of  rooms dedicated to Leptis Magna, including statuary from the Old Forum and the Sevran forum.  There are also more beautiful mosaics representing the four seasons taken from  the Roman Villa outside Zliten, the Villa Dar Buk Ammera which, we had visited recently.  Some of the pieces are enormous and the statues are notable for their great detail and lifelike accurate features.  There are geometric mosaics from the Villa of the Nereids at Tajura, a suburb of Tripoli as well as a series of portraits. Another room concerned with Leptis has more well preserved items from the Leptis Hadrianic baths and there are statues of Apollo and other famous characters including Mars the God of War.  Part of this room is dedicated to Sabratha with more Roman statuary and a mosaic showing Orpheus charming animals taken from The Villa of the Nile at Leptis.

There is a second floor with smaller items from Leptis including coins, glassware, busts, portraits, ceramics and statues.  Other rooms on this floor contain the bas-reliefs from the Arch of Septimus Severus at Leptis.  Here on this floor is the period focused on is the Byzantine era with masonry from various basilicas and photographs of the mosaics at the Qasr Libia in Cyrenaica.

The next floor up is a kind of Anthropology museum showing Islamic culture and traditional Libyan lifestyles including tents, textiles, costumes and jewelry.  

Up on the next floor is a curious mixture of items which in its own way, given a degree of semiotic analysis, reveals a little bit about the history of Libya.  Part of it is dedicated to modern political, economic and social Libya.  There are photographs of Colonel Quaddafy, oil refineries, and photographs of Omar Muktar the resistance leader who fought the Italian occupiers from his mountain hideout in the Jebal Akdar  There is also a nature section and though most of the stuffed animals are careworn there is an informative section on native fish which has proved useful in the past when trying to identify various fish in the market and my plate and and finding out their names in English Arabic and Latin.

There is also a curious mural depicting the scientific theory of evolution which seems out of place in an Islamic country: It is an exploding cosmic ball featuring stars and gases, amphibians and apes and other features of modern evolutionary theory.  It probably originates from another age in the history of the curators of the museum.  Many of the labels up here show the time and people who organised the exhibits.  Italians, English and American and you can see when the work finished and the exhibits, in this department, started to become neglected in the late 1960s.

I left the museum and went onto Green Square and walked back to the company offices where I had left my bag.  The roads that lead out of the square include streets with modern shops selling designer clothes, computers and camera equipment and small fast food outlets, some of which are modern in style and others which are more traditional, and often grubby matams, selling grilled lamb, chicken, chorba and fasoulia.  I picked up my bag and took a taxi to the airport for about fifteen dinars.  The plane left on time and I was in London by six thirty and in the pub in Brixton by nine.