Benghazi
— — the harbour city that keeps rebuilding.
Not only on a wall.
“A coastal city on Libya's eastern Cyrenaica, looking north onto the Gulf of Sidra. Greek settlers founded Euesperides here around the sixth century BC; the modern name traces to a Berber saint whose tomb sat at the harbour. The Italian colonial street grid and the Ottoman quarter still trade walls with each other near the old port, and the cathedral on Maydan al-Shajara still holds its dome.
Benghazi, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Benghazi sits on Libya's northeastern coast, at the western edge of the Cyrenaica region and the eastern shore of the Gulf of Sidra. The city's population is roughly 700,000, making it Libya's second-largest after Tripoli. Greek colonists from Cyrene founded Euesperides on the site around 525 BC; the harbour was later refounded as Berenice in the third century BC, named for the Ptolemaic queen. The Italian administration of 1911 to 1943 laid the boulevard plan that still organises the centre. The 2011 uprising began here.
The old town's bones are layered. Hellenistic foundations sit beneath Ottoman walls beneath Italian arcades. The Italianate Lungomare along the waterfront, the cathedral on Maydan al-Shajara, and the colonnaded Corso Italia were laid out in the 1920s and 1930s when the city was Italy's eastern Mediterranean show. Much of that fabric was damaged in the Second World War's North African campaigns and again during the 2014 to 2017 battle for the city. Restoration of the old town and the cathedral has been underway since 2018, slow and street by street.
Direct international flights into Benina International remain limited; most visitors arrive overland from Tobruk or by connecting flight through Cairo or Istanbul. The waterfront Corniche, the old Ottoman souq off Maydan al-Hurriya, and the Italian-era Berenice Cathedral anchor a walking day in the centre. Cyrene and Apollonia, two of the great Greek archaeological sites of the Mediterranean, lie within a two-hour drive east. The country requires a visa for most nationalities, with arrangements typically running through a local sponsor or an organised tour.