Tlemcen is a city for slow walking. The medina inside the old walls — bounded roughly by Bab al-Khamis to the south-west and the Mechouar to the east — contains an extraordinary concentration of medieval Maghrebi monuments. The twelfth-century Great Mosque is the unmissable one, but the medina has a whole sequence of smaller mosques and madrasas — Sidi Belahcen, Awlad al-Imam, Sidi Brahim, Lalla Ghriba — most of them tucked down narrow alleys and best found with a local guide.
A short ride south of the city, the village of El-Eubbad contains the great tomb-shrine of Sidi Bou Medien, the Sufi saint who is the city's patron. To the west, Mansourah preserves the spectacular ruined minaret of the Marinid camp-mosque, and to the south the limestone plateau of Tlemcen National Park has waterfalls, caves, and views back over the city.