Tripoli Off the Beaten Path Tips by TheWanderingCamel

Open for viewing: Spacious Gentleman's residence with uninterrupted sea views. Built to the highest specifications utilizing the most up-to-date building methods. Luxuriously appointed and decorated. State of the art plumbing to all bathrooms. Featuring exquisitely frescoed walls together with craftsman-laid mosaic floors and outdoor terraces. Marble-lined private temple. Wonderfully peaceful location 25 km outside the city. A classic home that will stand the test of time.

If ever they find a Roman estate agent's office under the unexcavated mounds of Leptis Magna, this ad for Villa Sileen could well be carved into one of the walls. Whoever the patrician Roman citizen was who lived here, he had found his own little corner of paradise.

All this beauty lay hidden for centuries under the dry, clean sand of the dunes - a wonderful preservative. When it was finally discovered in the latter half of the last century, the Libyan Department of Antiquities took enornous care over its preservation. For many years access was extremely restricted and even today, although the villa is now open to visitors, getting there is not easy. If you plan to make a private visit, your tickets, and a guide, must be collected from the ticket office in Leptis Magna ( and the guide returned there after your visit). Then you have a 25km journey back to the villa down a completely isolated road - public transport is not an option here.
Photography is allowed - the usual camera charge of 5LD applies.

Believe me - Villa Sileen is worth all the effort it takes to get there. The chances of you being there on your own are excellent and the peace and beauty of the place will bowl you over.

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And when we are back in old England,
When this war is over and won,
Remember the lads left behind us
Under the Libyan sun.
(WWII song)

The graves of 1400 Commonwealth and Allied casualties of World War II lie in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Tripoli. Like all cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this is a haven of peace and tranquillity, the simple white graves laid out in rows surrounded by immaculate green lawns. Most of the graves are British, but there are also Australians (photo 1), New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans and Indians buried here as well. There are a few non-Commonwealth graves also. A tall white Cross of Sacrifice (photo 2)in the middle of the cemetery memorializes all who gave their lives, including those whose graves lie unmarked and unknown in the Libyan desert.

The cemetery is located about 2km to the south-west of the medina,between Shariahs al Sour and al Jamhuriyah (photo 3), in the rear section of the Christian cemetery. The cemetery is walled and may look closed but you should be able to push the gates open.

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Most visitors to Tripoli drive straight through Janzur en route to Sabratha, maybe noting the holiday village on the beach and, if they're there in winter, the orange sellers along the roadside. Few stop, and so miss one of the most extraordinary places in Libya, for, under the urban sprawl of the old town that nowadays is rapidly being swallowed by the sprawl of Tripoli, you can stand at threshold of the netherworld of Roman ideas of the afterlife.

A complex of Roman tombs lies underneath the small Janzur museum. First discovered in 1958, with a further discovery in 1960, they contained many burials and cremations dating from the 1st to the 3rd century CE. Several of the bodies clutched a gold coin in one hand - the fee for the ferryman who would row them across the Styx, the river that divided the living world from Hades.

One tomb is decorated with a remarkable series of frescoes that depict the passage of the soul to the world of the dead - guarded by angels under a flowerbedecked and garlanded roof. (photo 1). The shades of the departed, ghostly figures of grey and black, await the newly dead as the are rowed across the Styx, leaving their world of colour and life behind them (photo 2 - click for the full panorama). The Labours of Hercules are also depicted in fresco.(photo 3)

The tomb (photo 4) may be accessed through the museum which displays many of the grave goods that were found when the tombs were excavated. There is a small entry charge, (photos extra). The museum lies on the south side of the road to Sabratha, about 14 km from the centre of Tripoli. Visiting the tombs can easily be combined with a visit to Sabratha

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