Constantine is graced with a number of gorgeous mosques, but these, as all others, are only open to Muslims. The oldest, and one of the most noticeable, is the Grand Mosque. Constructed in the thirteenth century on the site of a pagan temple, it was intended, as the Friday mosque, to hold most of the town's inhabitants.

Even though it has been reconstructed over the centuries and has a contemporary facade, the interior has retained some of its unique features, including some pillars and Corinthian capitals brought from Hippo Regius. The city's most well-known monument - you will see its double 107-metre high minarets as you come near the centre - is the Mosque of Emir Abdelkader.

The project started in 1968 as a desire to construct a mosque capable of accommodating 10,000 in its prayer chamber, but when the then president Houari Boumediène became involved, it grew into the present, ambitious building: one of the world's biggest mosques and Algeria's first contemporary Islamic university.