Ruins and Beaches (Tunis ~ Tunisia)

1 October 2022

Arrived in Tunis at the lovely hour of 30 minutes past midnight and was thankful for having organised a pickup and transfer us 11km to our hotel - even if it cost us 35 euros..

Must admit to some small trepidation as three years ago on our last trip we spent a month in Egypt and at the end of it pretty much swore we'd never go back to a North African/Arabic culture country - and yet here we are. First day was spent chilling by the pool, sorting out a SIM card and just getting the lay of the land. 

One of the downsides of Tunisia is finding concrete information about tours, prices etc... As an example the Lonely Planet has a whole 6 pages dedicated to Tunisia (and one of those is blank). Anyway we took a punt and arranged for a driver to take us out to Dougga, about a two hour drive, wait for three hours while wandered around the site and drive us back (definitely getting soft as ten years ago we would had done it using public transport). Plan was to get a guide on sight once we arrived, however no guides and pretty much no other tourists.

Luckily we had done some preparation and found a website that gave details and pretty much a guide to the ruins. That combined with the ruins marked on Maps.me app was enough for us to have a good look.

It's not until you hit the Capitol building that you suddenly realise why Dougga is highly regarded and a UNESCO world heritage site. The scope of the ruins is amazing. 

All in all we spent a solid three hours walking, a large chunk of which were on roman roads that haven't changed in 2,000 years.

Amphitheatre (restored) and capable of seating about 3,500 people.

Next was the uninspiring Church of Victoria - only Christian remains dating back to 4th century AD, some very snarly dogs and then the Cisterns of Ain Mizeb. The city’s main water supply, they were fed by a spring a few hundred metres away.

Downhill to the Cisterns of Ain El Hammam, added during the reign of Commodus about 180 AD to meet the city’s growing demand for water.

Arch of Alexander Severus (entrance to the city) dedicated to the emperor Severus.

Temple of Juno-Caelestis

Capitole, built in AD 166. No restoration just reinforcing. The massive walls are the finest known example of a construction technique called opus africanum, which uses large stones to strengthen walls built of small stones and rubble.

The scope of the ruins is very impressive. 

Licinian Baths. You enter the complex through the vaulted passage, about 20m long and very dark, originally built for the slaves who kept the baths operating. These baths were reserved for the elite.

House of Trifolium - whoever owned this house was seriously wealthy. 

Ain Doura Baths complete with (restored) loos.

Libyco-Punic Mausoleum rebuilt by French archaeologists is 1912 after the British destroyed the monument in order to take an inscribed chunk of it to the British Museum. 

A 2,000 year old drainage manhole and a very cute small tortoise.

To give an indication of the site here a screen shoot from Maps.me of points of interest.

The next day we did a cycle tour round Carthage. V interesting but the ruins are nowhere as impressive as Dougga. The two impressive pieces are the restored amphitheatre,  used regularly for concerts, and the massive bath house.

The cycle ride was on quiet streets, partly due to it being a Sunday and partly due to there being a running race on.

Lots of very loud thump-thump music coming from the stage and huge mass of men dancing.

It's not hard to see why there is so little in the way of ruins when you look at what the port of Carthage once looked like.

And then compare pretty much the same view as today - small island in picture below is the same one as the picture above. Urbanisation and redevelopment everywhere. 

Plan was then to use Bolt (sort of like Uber) to get a taxi to Hammamet. This was scuppered when taxi driver said in v broken english - no, taxi cooperative no and police will stop. Luckily we had the phone number of the driver who took us to Dougga. A call to him and a bit of wait and we were off to Hammamet. 

Our plan in Hammamet is basically to chill for 6 days or so. Staying at a nice-ish resort. Bit odd as most of the guests were on an all inclusive deal and are mostly french. 

The brown liberal at the high tide mark ain't seaweed, its camel poo. Camel rides being the thing to do.

Sadly if you're not all inclusive the dining options are limited and very expensive so we ended up getting a taxi for 5 dinar to the local Marina where there are lots of restaurants. Negotiating the taxi fare is a very relaxed affair and tends to be "7 dinar", our counter offer off "ha 4", and then - "ok 5". 

Walked to the Marina once during the day - really do not want to walk it at night. Danger is not so much of being mugged but the lack of footpaths and the Inshallah attitude of some drivers.

Opted for dinner one night at a very local restaurant just up the road from the hotel. Dinner was Couscous Royal (couscous with goat, chicken and merguez sausage) and Spaghetti Bolognese. Huge portions and very tasty. 

We have found that meals typically come with a few side dishes, i.e. salad, olives, soup, bread which are free - whereas in Portugal various unrequested side dishes will be put on your table and if you eat them, then you pay for them.

One thing we have found is that pasta and pizza are pretty much on every menu, which surprised us a bit until we figured out that the distance between Tunisia and Italy is less than the distance between Wellington and Auckland. 

Could not leave Tunisia without trying a drop of the local vintage. Though have to say grog shops are few and far between. Opted for the most expensive bottle in the store 31 Tunisian Dinar's - quite tasty though very tannic initially. 

From here we fly to Malta. Now travelling east from Spain to Tunisia we put our watches back an hour, however when we travel east from Tunisia to Malta we put our watches forward an hour - v odd. Can only assume Tunisia is on daylight saving and the others aren't or vice versa. 

At the airport we learnt a lesson. When changing the local currency back to your home currency make sure you have the reciept from the ATM from when you withdrew the money in the first place - otherwise the money changers will only change it for a "special" rate. Lost about $5 on the exchange, not a huge amount but still annoying.

Learnt a similar lesson a few years ago and that is if the currency you have is non-tradable i.e Egyptian Pounds then make sure you change them before you go through passport control because once you're on the other side they're worthless.