Travel Guide Tobrouk

From Derna to Tobruk, we enter the area of the Mediterranean steppe where Bedouin tribes live over hundreds of kilometres, far beyond the Egyptian border. After the beautiful landscapes of green and blue between Soussa and El-Athrun, the road may seem monotonous. At half way, we see the island of Al-Ulbah in the Gulf of Bomba. In the th century, the Greeks settled in an islet of this gulf, the island of Platéa, and remained there two years before landing in a gulf valley more conducive to their installation. It was only nine years later that Libyans led them to the location of the future Cyrene.The air embargo imposed on Libya had made Tobruk a city intensely driven by its port activity of freight and people transit between Libya and Egypt. The port city plays an active role in cross-border trade with Egypt, as evidenced by the activity of the bus station. Many Egyptians come to search for some work or pursue their quest to the west of the country. Tobruk's main activity, however, is in the oil trade of its port.Tobruk's visit is mainly justified for the cemeteries of the Allies and Germans around the city, testifying to the intense confrontations that the region was the theatre during World War II. As the only major natural port between Egypt and Tunisia, Tobruk was indeed a strategic challenge for the desert war (1940-1943), because the large warships could land there. The city specialised in the hands of the two camps no less than three times. Occupied by Italians on 4 October 1911 (one day before Tripoli), it was conquered (and devastated) in January 1941 by the British troops of General Wawel. From April 1941, the German troops of General Rommel around and bombed the city, but the Germans were waiting until June 1942 to seize it. Tobruk was definitively resumed in November 1942 by General Montgomery's forces following the allied offensive from El-Alamein.