Place Bouchoucha is the small public square at the heart of the old town — the meeting point of the medina, the old port, and the lane leading up to the Spanish Fort. The Great Mosque is on one side; the Youssef Dey fountain (still functioning as a public drinking-water point) is on another; small cafés ring the rest of the perimeter.
The square is the easiest landmark to use as a base for walking the old town. By day it is a quiet pedestrian space; in the evening, the cafés fill up with men playing dominoes and watching football on television, and the calls from the muezzin overlap from the Great Mosque and the smaller mosques on the surrounding streets.
The fountain itself dates from the seventeenth century and carries a long Arabic inscription naming the Hammouda Pasha al-Mouradi who commissioned both it and the Great Mosque.