Benghazi (Arabic: بنغازي — population 700,000: the second-largest city in Libya and the capital of the Cyrenaica region) is the most historically layered city in North Africa: a coastal Mediterranean port founded as the Greek colony of Euesperides in the 5th century BCE (later Hesperides and then Berenice — named for Berenice II of Egypt, the Ptolemaic queen and renowned athletic champion), transformed by the Romans (who renamed it Berenice and made it the most important port of the province of Cyrenaica), then by the Byzantines, the Arab conquerors of the 7th century CE, the Ottoman Turks (who ruled it for three centuries), the Italians (who colonized it from 1911 to 1943 and left the most elegant European-colonial architecture in Africa: the Italianate streets, the Art Deco buildings and the Lungomare (the seafront promenade) that give Benghazi the feeling of a Mediterranean European city transported to the North African coast), the British and Free French (who liberated it from the Germans in WWII: the North African campaign of 1940–1943 saw Benghazi change hands four times between the Axis and the Allied forces), and the birthplace of the 2011 Libyan Civil War (the February 17 Revolution that began in Benghazi on February 17, 2011 and toppled Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship).
Benghazi old city (the medina — the historic core of the city centered on the Atiq Mosque (the "Old Mosque": the most important historic building in Benghazi — the 16th-century Ottoman mosque built on the foundations of an earlier Byzantine church (the Byzantine church was built on the foundations of the earlier Roman temple: the palimpsest of religious and cultural layers is the defining characteristic of historic Benghazi)): the covered souq (the traditional North African market covering the streets around the Atiq Mosque: the most important commercial area in historic Benghazi — the Souq el-Jareed (the "Dried Dates Market") is the oldest continuously operating market in Benghazi, selling the dates (the most important agricultural product of the Cyrenaica interior: the date palms of the Benghazi hinterland produce the most prized dates in Libya), the traditional textiles, the spices and the metalwork of the Libyan artisan tradition): the Ottoman fondouk (the caravanserai — the courtyard inn where the traders and their camels rested during the trans-Saharan trade: the Benghazi fondouks were the most important nodes in the North Africa–Sahara–sub-Saharan Africa trade network until the early 20th century).
Benghazi Lungomare (the "sea-front" promenade — the most important Italian colonial legacy in Benghazi: the palm-lined seafront boulevard designed and built by the Italian colonial administration in the 1920s and 1930s as the showpiece of the "fourth shore" (the "Quarta Sponda" — the Italian Fascist description of Libya as Italy's fourth coastline, alongside the Ligurian, Sicilian and Adriatic coasts): the Lungomare architecture (the most important concentration of Italian colonial architecture in Libya: the Rationalist buildings (the Italian architectural movement of the 1920s–1940s that was the official state architecture of Mussolini's Fascist regime — the Rationalist style stripped the Classical forms to their geometric essence: flat roofs, unornamented facades, regular window rhythms): the most important buildings on the Lungomare include the former Grand Hotel Berenice (the most important Art Deco building in Benghazi), the former Italian consulate, and the row of Rationalist apartment buildings that still give the Benghazi seafront its distinctive European colonial character).
Suq al-Jreed (the Dried Dates Market — the most important traditional market in Benghazi and the most important date market in the Cyrenaica region): the Cyrenaica dates (the dates of the Benghazi hinterland and the Kufra oasis (Libya's most important date-growing region): the most prized dates in Libya are the medjool (the "king of dates" — the large, soft, sweet date that has the most complex and most caramel-like flavor of any date variety: the most expensive date in the world market), the deglet nour (the "date of light" — the semi-dry date that is the most widely exported Libyan date: the most commercially important date in North Africa), and the hallawi (the "sweet one" — the medium-sized, very sweet date of the Cyrenaica region)): the Libyan green tea ceremony (the "atay" or "shahi" — the most important social ritual in Libyan Saharan and Bedouin culture: the three-glass tea ceremony: the first glass is sweet, the second is sweeter and the third is "bitter as death" (the proverb): the tea is the Chinese gunpowder green tea brewed with mint and served in tiny glasses with foam: the foam (the "rghwa" — the froth produced by pouring the tea from a height to aerate it) is the sign of quality and hospitality).
Benghazi waterfront seafood dinner (the most important fishing port in Libya — the Benghazi fishing fleet operates on the most productive section of the Libyan Mediterranean coast: the upwelling of cold nutrient-rich water at the Benghazi embayment creates the most productive fishing grounds in Libya): the most important species: the sea bream (Sparus aurata — the "orada" in Italian: the most prized and most expensive Mediterranean fish: the golden-yellow stripe between the eyes (the "golden bream") identifies the species: the sea bream is the fish most associated with the Italian Mediterranean culinary tradition and the most important fish in the Benghazi seafood tradition), the red mullet (Mullus surmuletus — the "triglia" in Italian: the most intensely flavored Mediterranean fish (the flavor of the red mullet has been described by the Roman food writer Apicius as the most exquisite of all seafood)), and the Mediterranean octopus (Octopus vulgaris — the "akhbout" in Libyan Arabic: the most widely eaten cephalopod in the Libyan coastal diet (the octopus is caught by the Benghazi fishermen using traditional clay pot traps set on the rocky reef bottom)): with the Libyan couscous — the "mafrum" (the most important Cyrenaican couscous dish: the hand-rolled couscous steamed in the couscoussier with the spiced meat sauce and the "mafrum" (the stuffed eggplant or potato (the vegetable hollowed out and stuffed with the spiced minced meat and pine nuts))).
Sidi Abeid archaeological site (the ancient Euesperides/Berenice — the Greek colony founded approximately 525 BCE by colonists from Cyrene (the most important Greek city in Libya and one of the most important Greek cities in the ancient Mediterranean world): the name changes reflect the political history: Euesperides (the original colonial name: "the city of the Good West Wind" — named for the Hesperides, the nymphs of the western garden of the golden apples in Greek mythology) was renamed Hesperides in the Hellenistic period and then Berenice (named for Berenice II of Egypt — the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes: one of the most remarkable women of the ancient world: the Olympic chariot racing champion (the first woman to win at the ancient Olympic Games in her own right), the patron of the art of Callimachus, the model for the constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) (the hair that Berenice cut and dedicated to Aphrodite for the safe return of her husband from the Third Syrian War (246–241 BCE) — the constellation was identified by the astronomer Conon of Samos as the missing lock)): the excavations (British-Libyan archaeological expedition 1952–1956 and the subsequent Italian excavations) have revealed the Hellenistic harbor district, the street grid and the foundation remains of the most important buildings of the Greek colonial city.
Al-Jumhuriya Street (the "Republic Street" — the most important colonial boulevard in Benghazi: the former Corso Vittorio Emanuele (named for the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III during the Italian colonial period): the main commercial artery of the Italian colonial city built in the 1920s and 1930s as the showpiece of the "forth shore": the finest Italian Rationalist architecture in Libya (the Rationalist buildings of the Italian colonial administration — the Banco di Napoli (now the Banco di Benghazi), the former Hotel de Benghazi (the most important Art Deco building on the street), the post office (the Palazzo delle Poste — the most monumental building on the boulevard) and the arcaded commercial blocks (the "portici" — the ground-floor arcades that were the most important Italian contribution to the colonial urban form: the arcades protected the shoppers and the pedestrians from the summer heat and the winter rain: the same portici found in Bologna, Turin and Padua have been transplanted to the North African coast with remarkable fidelity to the Italian original).
Benghazi War Memorial Garden (the most important memorial space in Libya — the garden commemorating the multiple layers of conflict that have defined Benghazi's modern history): the Italian colonial war memorial (the Libyan resistance to Italian colonialism (1911–1943) — the most brutal colonial war in North African history: the Italian occupation involved the mass deportation of the Cyrenaican population to the Agheila concentration camps (1929–1933), the execution of the Libyan resistance leader Omar Mukhtar (the "Lion of the Desert") on September 16 1931 (the most important event in modern Libyan history: the public hanging of the 73-year-old Mukhtar in front of 20,000 Libyan prisoners was the defining moment of Libyan national consciousness and the most important founding myth of Libyan nationalism)): the WWII desert campaign memorial (Benghazi was one of the most important contested towns of the North African campaign: the town changed hands four times between the Axis forces (the Italian 10th Army and the German Afrika Korps) and the Allied forces (the British 8th Army and the Free French) between 1940 and 1943): and the 2011 Libyan Revolution (the February 17 Revolution that began in Benghazi: the most important political event in modern Libyan history).
Sabkhat al-Salmani (the coastal saltwater lagoon — the shallow tidal flat east of the Benghazi urban area: the most important wetland habitat in the Benghazi metropolitan area and the most important migratory bird staging site in eastern Libya): the greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus — the most spectacular migratory bird in the Benghazi lagoon: the flamingo population (arriving from their breeding sites in Tunisia and Sardinia in October and remaining until March) uses the Sabkhat al-Salmani for feeding (the shallow saline water is ideal for the filter-feeding of the brine shrimp (Artemia salina) and the blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria) that are the primary food of the flamingo: the pink coloration of the flamingo is produced by the carotenoid pigments in the brine shrimp and the algae)): the sunset over the lagoon (the sky reflected in the shallow water, the flamingos moving in the evening light: the most spectacular sunset panorama in Benghazi).
Benghazi Museum of Antiquities (the most important archaeological museum in eastern Libya): the Cyrenaican collections (the artifacts from the Greek, Roman and Byzantine sites of the Cyrenaica — the most archaeologically rich region in North Africa): the Greek collection (the artifacts from the 5th–1st century BCE: the most important is the Gorgon relief (the Archaic Greek terracotta Gorgon mask — the most important piece of Archaic Greek sculpture in Libya: the Gorgon (Medusa) mask was used in Greek architectural decoration to ward off evil: the Benghazi Gorgon is one of the most complete and most artistically important Archaic Greek Gorgon masks in existence)): the Roman collection (the artifacts from the Roman province of Cyrenaica (27 BCE – 642 CE): the most important Roman artifacts include the portrait busts of Roman emperors (the Hadrian bust is the most important (Hadrian visited Cyrenaica in 128 CE and rebuilt the cities after the Jewish revolt of 115–117 CE that had devastated the Cyrenaican population))), and the Byzantine floor mosaics (the 5th–6th century CE mosaic pavements from the Byzantine basilicas of the Benghazi area: the most important collection of early Christian mosaics in Libya).
Libyan mafrum (the most important dish of the Cyrenaican culinary tradition — the combination of hand-rolled couscous + mafrum (the stuffed vegetable) + spiced meat sauce): the couscous (the semolina pasta rolled by hand into small granules and steamed in the couscoussier (the two-level steamer pot): the Libyan couscous is the finest-grained couscous in North Africa (finer than the Moroccan and the Algerian couscous: the grains are the size of tiny pearls): the most important ritual food in Libya (couscous is always served on Fridays and on all religious and social occasions)): the mafrum (the "stuffed" vegetables — the eggplant or the potato (hollowed out with a cylinder-shaped core borer) stuffed with a mixture of the minced lamb + onion + egg + parsley + pine nuts + the Libyan spice blend and then fried until the outside is golden and then braised in the spiced tomato and meat sauce): the shorba (the Libyan lamb soup — the most important first course in the Libyan meal: the lamb bone broth with the tomato, the chickpeas, the pasta and the ras el hanout (the "head of the shop" — the most complex spice blend in the North African culinary tradition: the blend of 20–30 spices including the rose petals, the mace, the galangal, the grains of paradise and the cubeb pepper)).
Benghazi old port (Mina al-Qadim — the "Old Port"): the most historically important port in Libya and one of the most continuously used harbors in the Mediterranean (in use since the Ptolemaic period (3rd century BCE) when Berenice was one of the most important trading ports of the Ptolemaic kingdom): the traditional fishing dhows (the "dghaysa" or "dajaja" — the traditional wooden fishing vessels of the Libyan Mediterranean coast: the lateen-rigged boats with the triangular sail set on a long yard that is characteristic of all Mediterranean and Indian Ocean traditional sailing vessels: the lateen sail is the most efficient fore-and-aft sail for sailing close to the wind and the most important Mediterranean technological contribution to the history of navigation): the fish auction (the "haraj" — the most important daily event at the Benghazi port: the fish auction takes place at sunrise when the fishing boats return with the night's catch: the most exciting and most chaotic commercial event in Benghazi daily life).
Farewell Libyan dinner: asida (the white cornmeal porridge — the most ancient and most ceremonially important food in the Libyan Bedouin tradition: the asida is served at the most important social occasions (weddings, funerals, the celebration of the return from pilgrimage) in the Libyan Bedouin and semi-nomadic tradition: the white maize porridge (cooked to a stiff paste and turned out onto a large round plate) served with a well of the clarified butter (the "smen" — the aged clarified butter that is the most important fat in the North African culinary tradition) in the center and surrounded by the date syrup (the "dibs" — the concentrated syrup produced by boiling and pressing the dates: the most important sweetener in the pre-sugar Saharan diet)): the bazeen (the most important savory traditional Libyan dish: the barley flour paste (the "bazeen" — the densely cooked barley paste formed into a large mound and surrounded by the spiced lamb bone broth with the fried onion rings and the boiled eggs): the dish is eaten communally from the single large plate in the traditional manner): farewell Libyan mint tea (the "atay" — the three-glass mint tea ceremony: "sweet as life, bitter as death").