Libya

Leptis Magna and Sabratha are the two great Roman cities of Tripolitania, both UNESCO World Heritage sites and among the most extensive Roman archaeological landscapes anywhere in the Mediterranean. Leptis Magna, 130 km east of Tripoli, was the birthplace of the emperor Septimius Severus (145 CE) and the showpiece of Severan urbanism — the Severan Basilica, the New Forum, the Hadrianic Baths, the harbour, the amphitheatre and the Severan Arch are spread over an immense site. Sabratha, 65 km west of Tripoli, preserves one of the most spectacular Roman theatres in the world (three storeys of marble columns reconstructed in the 1930s), the Temple of Liber Pater, the harbour and a small museum with one of the most important mosaic collections in North Africa.

Cyrene, in the green Jebel Akhdar of the Cyrenaica, is the great Greek and Roman city of eastern Libya, founded by Greek colonists from Thera (Santorini) around 631 BCE and developed as the capital of Cyrenaica through Hellenistic and Roman times. The Sanctuary of Apollo, the Temple of Zeus, the Greek and Roman necropolises, the Theatre and the Agora extend across a remarkable plateau overlooking the Mediterranean. The wider Cyrenaica region also includes the harbour city of Apollonia (Cyrene's port), the city of Ptolemais and the green-mountain landscape of the Jebel Akhdar.

The Old Town of Ghadamès, on the Tunisia-Algeria border in north-western Libya, is one of the most distinctive vernacular urban landscapes in the Sahara — a Berber oasis town with a layered subterranean architecture in which the streets are partly covered to provide shade and air circulation, and homes are decorated with the distinctive geometric Ghadamès interior style of red and white painted plaster. The women's roof-terrace circulation network above the male-dominated streets below is one of the most ingenious vernacular urban designs in North Africa. UNESCO World Heritage since 1986. The town also lies at one of the great historic trans-Saharan caravan crossroads.

The Rock-Art Sites of Tadrart Acacus, in the Fezzan in south-western Libya near Ghat, preserve prehistoric paintings and engravings spanning over 12,000 years — from the wet-Sahara hunters and herders of the Holocene (with paintings of giraffe, elephant, antelope and cattle no longer found in the desert) to the horse and camel periods. UNESCO World Heritage since 1985. The surrounding sandstone-and-canyon landscape is one of the most spectacular in the central Sahara, and combines well with the Ubari oasis lakes (a chain of saltwater lakes set among high dunes) and the historic caravan town of Ghat.

Tripoli's Old Medina is one of the most photogenic Old Medinas of North Africa — a network of narrow streets between the Mediterranean and Maydan al-Shuhada, anchored by the Marcus Aurelius Arch (165 CE), the only Roman triumphal arch standing in Africa. The Karamanli Mosque, the Gurgi Mosque, the Souq al-Mushir, and the Red Castle (Saraya al-Hamra) housing the National Museum of Libya complete the historic core. Beyond the Medina, the early-twentieth-century Mediterranean modernist architecture along the corniche, around Maydan al-Shuhada and on the boulevards out toward the airport adds a distinctive architectural layer to the city.

Libyan cuisine combines North African and Mediterranean traditions: bazin (a hard barley dough served with lamb-and-tomato stew, the national dish), shorba (the traditional Ramadan soup of lamb, tomato, chickpeas and orzo, eaten across Libya), couscous in the Tunisian-Libyan style, sharmoula spice paste, the Libyan tea ritual with mint and groundnuts, and a strong Italian-Libyan culinary heritage that survives in bread, pasta, pastry and ice-cream traditions. The hospitality of Libyan households (the cultural value of the unannounced guest) remains the strongest first impression for almost every international visitor — surviving every successive period of the country's history.