Mauritania Tourist Attractions: 10 Top Places to Visit
Planning to visit Mauritania? Check out our Mauritania Travel Guide video and see top most Tourist Attractions in Mauritania.
Top Places to visit in Mauritania:
Port de Peche, Plage de Nouakchott, Centre culturel francais St Exupery, Galerie Zeinart, Chinguetti Mosque, Banc d'Arguin National Park, Terjit, Marche Capitale, Saudi Mosque, Stade Olympique de Nouakchott
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Best places to visit in Mauritania !
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Chinguetti the library of the desert (Mauritania)
Chinguetti la bibliothèque du désert
Chinguetti (Arabic: شنقيط) is a ksour or ancient trading centre in northern Mauritania, lying on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar.
Founded in the 13th century, as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small threatened city continues to attract visitors who admire its spare architecture, exotic scenery and its ancient libraries.
The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city feature reddish dry stone and mud-brick houses,featuring flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia tress that have long disappeared from the surroundings. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crowd along narrow streets leading to the central mosque.
Notable buildings in the town include The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti,an ancient structure of dry stone featuring a square minaret capped with five ostrich egg finials; the former French Foreign Legion fortress; and a tall watertower. The old quarter of the Chinguetti is home to five important manuscript libraries of scientific and Qur'anic texts, with many dating from the later Middle Ages.
The Chinguetti region has been occupied for thousands of years and once was a broad savannah. Cave paintings in the nearby Amoghar Pass feature pictures of giraffes, cows and people in a green landscape quite different from the starkly beautiful sand dunes of the desert landscape found in the region today.
The city was originally founded in 777, and by the 11th century had become a trading center for a confederation of Berber tribes known as the Sanhadja Confederation. Soon after settling Chinguetti, the Sanhadja first interacted with and eventually melded with the Almavorids, the founders of the Moorish Empire which stretched from present-day Senegal to Spain. The city's stark unadorned architecture reflects the strict, Malikite Islamic beliefs of the Almavorids.
After two centuries of decline, the city was effectively re-founded in the 13th century as a fortified cross-Saharan caravan trading center connecting the Mediterranean with Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the walls of the original fortification disappeared centuries ago, many of the buildings in the old section of the city still date from this period.
For centuries the city was a principal gathering place for pilgrims of the Maghreb to gather on the way to Mecca and it became known as a holy city in its own right, especially for pilgrims unable to make the long journey to the Arab Peninsula. It also became a center of Islamic religious and scientific scholarship in West Africa. In addition to religious training, the schools of Chinguetti taught students rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. For many centuries all of Mauritania was popularly known in the Arab world as Bilad Shinqit, the land of Chinguetti. Chinguetti is sometimes said to be the seventh holiest city of Islam. There is no recognition of this claim outside of West Africa, but whatever its ranking, the city remains one of the world's most important historical sites both in terms of the history of Islam and the history of West Africa.
Although largely abandoned to the desert, the city features a series of medieval manuscript libraries without peer in West Africa, and the area around the Rue des Savants was once famous as a gathering place for scholars to debate the finer points of Islamic law. Today its deserted streets continue to reflect the urban and religious architecture of the Moorish empire as it existed in the Middle Ages.
Today, along with the cities of Ouadane, Tichitt and Oualata, Chinguetti has been designated as a World heritage site. The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti, is widely considered by Mauritanians to be the national symbol of the country. Mauritania's recently discovered offshore oilfield was named Chinguetti in its honor.
While difficult to get to, Chinguetti's stark beauty and exotic, medieval Islamic architecture make the region an interesting, if challenging, tourist destination for both the adventurous traveler and the Islamic scholar.
VALPARD FILMS
Long way to Chinguetti : Morocco and Mauritania on a Honda Africa Twin XRV 750 Motorcycle
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This is our last trip in Africa, to go and see the desert city of Chinguetti and also all the interesting places on the way there like Fes, Marrakech, the western sahara`s coast, Nouakchott and so on.
Our motorcycle, Africanul, is a 1993 Honda Africa Twin RD07 750cc.
This trip was filmed with GoPro Hero 3 Black , Canon 70D (10-18 IS STM, 18-55 IS STM, 50-250 IS STM, 50mm F1.8 STM) , a steadicam hd2000 and a tripod.
Mauritania Travel Warning
Mauritania Travel Warning March 22, 2017 — Video Update March 27, 2017. The US State Department has issued a travel warning for Mauritania due to terrorism activity in border countries.
Mauritania - Biblioteca Habott, Chinguetti
Una breve visita alla antica biblioteca Habott di Chinguetti, dove saremo il prossimo 9 gennaio durante la prima tappa di DESTINAZIONE CIAD 2017-2019
La bibliothèque Habot, fondée par Sidi Mohamed Ould Habott (1776 -1876), est l'une des plus importantes et des plus riches.
1400 manuscrits, dont certains millénaires, composent cette collection. Il ne faut toutefois pas s'attendre à voir toutes ces merveilles. Pour des raisons de conservation, les manuscrits sont rangés dans des boîtes en carton alignées sur des étagères métalliques. Il est donné à voir au visiteur quelques exemples de ces manuscrits, illustrés et avec des enluminures dorées.
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Central Market Nouakchott Mauritania
★ Nomad Revelations Travel Blog → ★ Walking around the Central Market of Nouakchott in Mauritania. This market has a heavy Al Qaida presence. Too much garbage.
Arriving Chinguetti Desert Mauritania
Arriving Chinguetti Desert Mauritania. This is the road coming from Atar. Mauritania March 2009.
notre auberge de Chinguetti
circuit et raid en mauritanie
mauritanie-aventure.com
le spécialiste de la mauritanie
Mauritania 06
Viaje a Mauritania por Marruecos y Sahara Occidental en Land Rover Defender.
31-12-2008: Terjit - Atar - Pass d'Amogjar - Site rupestre d'Agrour - Ouadane.