The year's first Saturday. The sun - that prodigal child finally returned - bathes Algiers in its pale winter gold Un my scooter, I abandon my usual routes to Saint-Eugène, giving myself to the serpentine curves of the neights - the Rue des Frères Bellili draws me in like a half-remembered dream.

5:45 AM, early July. A clammy heat already clings to my clothes and the ancient stones of this place. While Algiers still sleeps, the true guardians of the Casbah are already at work. No diplomas—just backs bent by five centuries of history, bearing the invisible weight of these alleyways. 

A Tuesday afternoon only Algiers could conjure. In the labyrinth of the Casbah, a café terrace calls to me not just with steaming mint tea, but with an unusual invitation: to taste tradition by donning the « Haik », that poetic veil of Algerian women.