Visit to Tunisia (7): El Djem and Monastir
October 9th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Thursday was a long but enjoyable day, starting at 9 am and finishing about 5 pm. Using Sousse as a base for local travel, we visited two historic towns.
The first was El Djem, called Thysdrus in Roman times, which is a drive of just over an hour south of Sousse.
This is the location of a Roman amphitheatre built around 200 AD with a spectator capacity of 35,000, second only in size to the one in Rome. It is one of the largest and best preserved in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I enjoyed this visit more than my visits to the Colosseum in Rome because there were so few other tourists.
Also in the town, we visited the Archaeological Museum which has a spectacular collection of original mosaics drawn from local Roman sites. There were models of the villas from which the mosaics were found, showing the original location of the various mosaics. Of course, mosaics were constructed on floors but are now displayed – more Impressively – on walls.
Next to the museum is an actual Roman house relocated and rebuilt.
Lunch was at a local hotel called Dar Ammar which, unlike our previous set lunches, was self-service. There was a menu with banana split on it and I fancied that for dessert and offered to buy one, but the hotel had no bananas. Indeed I never saw one on the entire holiday.
After lunch, it was a one hour drive north-east to Monastir
Traditionally a fishing port, Monastir is now a major tourist resort. Its population is about 90,000.
Here we visited the Ribat Fortress and three of us – including yours truly – climbed to the top of the tower. This involved taking 86 stone steps in a dark and sharply turning staircase.
Finally we visited the huge, opulent Mausoleum of Tunisia’s first president. Habib Bourguiba (1903-2000) led the country as prime minister from 1956-1957 and as president from 1957-1987.
Our guide was a big fan of Bourguiba decribing him as “this hero” and praising his early measures to promote the rights of women. But Bourguiba was a man who declared himself president for life.
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Visit to Tunisia (6): Kairouan
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Wednesday was another early start as at 8 am we left Tunis to head due south on a modern motorway. It was the hottest day as the temperature rose to 31C. Our destination was Kairouan.
Kairouan – the name means ‘military camp’ in Arabic – is Tunisia’s oldest city, founded in 670 AD by Oqba ibn Nafi. It is Islam’s fourth holiest city, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
This UNESCO-listed city was a revered centre of Islamic scholarship in the 9th century and today it is a place of pilgrimage. Indeed it is said that seven visits here by the faithful equates to one pilgrimage to Mecca.
The town includes the enormous Great Mosque of Sidi Oqba, dating from the 8th century with most of its buildings constructed in 17th century.
The oldest part of the mosque is the square minaret which was built between 724 and 728, making it the oldest minaret in the world. The location features a total of 414 marble, granite and porphyry pillars, many reused from ancient Roman and Byzantine sites across North Africa.
Our other visit in the city was to the Mausoleum of Sidi Sahab, also known as the Zaouia of Sidi Sahab or the Mausoleum of the Barber.
It is one of Kairouan’s most famous religious monuments. The mausoleum is dedicated to Abu Zama‘a al-Balawi, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who, according to tradition, always carried three hairs from the Prophet’s beard—hence the nickname “the Barber.”
The complex includes a mosque, courtyards, and richly decorated rooms, making it a significant site of pilgrimage and an excellent example of traditional Tunisian architecture.
We remained in the city for lunch – an affair of four courses – at the Hotel Amina. Afterwards we drove north-east to our accommodation in Sousse, arriving in mid-afternoon so that it was not too challenging a day.
Our stay for the next three nights is the Movenpick Hotel. Located on the beachfront in the heart of the city, this is a splendid, modern hotel with over 600 rooms. Tess and I were given one overlooking a terrace garden with the Mediterranean Sea just beyond.
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Visit to Tunisia (5): Carthage
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
What remained of Wednesday afternoon was devoted to Carthage. Located in the north-east suburbs of Tunis, this was the capital of the ancient Carthaginian civilisation that was a major trading empire from the 6th century BC. It was home to Hannibal and his elephants.
However, it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. About a century later, Julius Caesar had it rebuilt as Roman Carthage on its ruins centred on the Hill of Byrsa. It became the second city in the Roman Empire after Rome itself. Arab invaders levelled the city once again in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is so little left to see: hardly anything compared to Uthina and almost nothing contrasted with Dugga. We focused on the Antoine Baths and the end of the aqueduct by the huge cistern.
Our guide was bitter about the Romans. He told of us the three Punic Wars between the rival Carthaginians and Romans, which took place from 264-241 BC, 218-201 BC and 149-146 BC respectively, and asserted that the third was “not a war but genocide”. Apparently the Romans did not just kill the Cathaginians but obliterated their civilisation, and even poisoned the land with salt.
He also reaffirmed the axiom that history is written by the victors. The Carthaginians were descended from the Phoenicians, who gave the Ancient World the alphabet, but most accounts of Carthage were written by Romans who lived long after the events and had never visited the site.
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Visit to Tunisia (4): Tunis
October 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Tuesday was spent in and around Tunis. It was a long day, because we left the hotel at 8.45 am and did not return till 5.40 pm, so we were out for 9 hours. But there was very little travel and fine weather and wonderful attractions.
The capital of Tunisia, which gives its name to the country as a whole, is located on the northern Mediterranean coast and the wider metropolitan area has a population of 2.7 million.
Our morning visit was to the famous Bardo Museum. The Bardo Museum is a complex of 13th- to 19th-century buildings that includes the Beylical Palace. It houses the continent’s largest selection of mosaics, arguably the finest in the world.
One mosaic is the most valued in the entire collection. It depicts the poet Virgil and the two muses: Callope, the muse of epic poetry, and Polymnis, the muse of pantomime. Our guide called it “more than a masterpiece”.
The earliest true mosaics in the world – dated to the 5th or 4th century BC – were discovered in Carthage indicating that it was the Carthaginians, and not the Romans, who invented the art form.
Next we went over to the UNESCO-protected medina which was built in the 7th century. It includes mosques, mausoleums, madrasas, palaces and fountains, some 700 historical monuments in all. Most notable are the Great Mosque, the Bey’s Palace and the Aghlab Palace. There are some 400 Art Deco buildings including the Villa Boublil.
We only had time to savour the atmosphere by walking through the narrow, cobbled lanes lined with shops selling everything and locals shuffling in front and behind us, all friendly and welcoming.
Our one stop was in a government-sponsored carpet shop. The ‘soft sell’ began with a climb up flights of stone steps with carpets on every wall, all the way up to the roof, where we had excellent views of the medina.
Then we were ushered into the sales area where we were served with mint tea and small pieces of baklava before the English-speaking manager explained how the carpets are made and the choices of design and size (and price), as his colleagues continually rolled out one carpet on top of another. Two sales were obtained from our group.
We left the medina to walk down the wide, tree-lined main boulevard of the city, the Avenue Habib Bourguiba – reminiscent of the Rambla in Barcelona – to find our bus and return to our destination of two days ago – “La Victoire” at La Goulette – for a lunch of chicken and rice.
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Visit to Tunisia (3): Testour and Dougga
October 6th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The second day of our tour (Monday) involved a long drive to Roman ruins and our guide was keen to avoid crowds and heat, so we made an early start of 8 am. In fact, once we were there, we had the place almost to ourselves and the weather veered between overcast, spitting and then bright sunshine.
First, though, we made a stop at a small town called Testour where we had some time to explore the bustling main street. Testour’s old town dates to the 17th century, making it one of Tunisia’s oldest cities.
Our main destination was the site of Dougga. This was built in the 2nd & 3rd centuries on the foundations of a much earlier Numidian settlement which was once the seat of power for the Numidian king, Massinissa. Today it is the best preserved Roman monument in Northern Africa.
There are 12 Roman temples, three baths, numerous cisterns and fountains, two heavily restored theatres, a nymphaeum, an aqueduct, a market, a circus, several necropolises and a handful of mausoleums.
For us, highlights of this UNESCO World Heritage Site included the fabulously preserved amphitheatre seating 3,500 (in a town of just 5,000), a splendid Capitol dating to the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, The House of the Trifolium for the most honoured of citizens, and an early example of public toilets for all who needed them
Lunch was at the Hotel Thuggar at Teboursouk and then we made the two-hour ride back to Tunis.
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Visit to Tunisia (2): Uthina and Sidi Bou Said
October 5th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
On Saturday afternoon, we arrived at Gatwick Airport the recommended two hours before our flight, only to find that it was delayed and then delayed again by the impact of Storm Amy. So , after a wait of four and a half hours, we finally took off two and a half hours late.
We flew with Tunisair in an Airbus A320. Since we travelled due south, there is no time difference between London and Tunis. Also it is not a long flight: only 2 hours 10 minutes. So we reached our hotel at 11.30 pm.
We are staying for four nights at the El Mouradi Gammarth Hotel which is located on the beach close to Carthage. It is a huge, modern place with some 500 rooms positioned around a very large open-air swimming pool.
Our first day in Tunisia (Sunday) was wonderfully warm (29C) and the Jules Verne group of 17 travellers (only four of then men) enjoyed a programme that was quite relaxed. Our guide is an incredibly knowledgeable and immensely cheerful, if heavily-accented, man called Mohamed Ben Hammed who suggested that we call him simply Ben (which means ‘son of’).
He told us that there are over 200 Roman towns in Tunisia, of which just 47 have been excavated, and that there are over 100 million olive trees in the country. On the way to our first ruins, we saw plenty of those trees.
In the morning, we visited Uthina, an archaeological site a short drive south of Tunis. The remains are those of a Roman town probably built by the emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century AD. The amphitheatre seated some 16,000. There are extensive remains of an impressive aqueduct which carried water all the way to Carthage.
Lunch was in the port of Tunis, called La Goulette, in a restaurant called “La Victoire” and the main course was fish from the nearby Mediterranean.
Our afternoon destination was the Moorish artist village of Sidi Bou Said. This is a coastal town with cobbled streets lined with whitewashed houses with bright blue doors and balconies echoing the sea and the sky. All these doors are set off with stuns in decorative patterns.
Abu Said al-Bali, after whom the village is named, died here in 1231 and is buried in the local mosque. In 1915, the government issued orders that the character of the place be preserved and it has been, making it a charming sight.
All our meals are included on this tour, so dinner – a self-service affair – was at the hotel.
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Visit to Tunisia (1): introduction
October 4th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
I love to visit new countries but, north of the equator, the only places in Africa that I’ve been to are Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. Now though I’m off to Tunisia with my partner Tess on a trip provided by the company Jules Verne. It will be the 91st country that I’ve visited.
Tunisia is the northern-most country in Africa and has a population of just over 12 million. The official language is Tunisian Arabic which is a dialect influenced by Berber, French, Italian and Turkish. The local currency is the dinar and there are roughly four to the pound.
Ancient Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians in the 9th century BC, it was a major power for six centuries, and it became a rival to Rome until, after the two Punic Wars, it was defeated in 146 BC.
For the next almost 800 years, it was ruled by Rome as a Christian nation. However, in the 7th century AD, Arab Muslims conquered Tunisia which since then has been Arabic and Islamic.
Tunisia was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1546 to 1881. Then it was ruled by France from 1881.
In the Second World War, the Battle of Tunisia was a decisive conflict for the Allies when they beat Axis powers in a series of encounters between November 1942 and May 1943.
In 1956, Tunisia gained its independence from France.
The Arab Spring of the early 2010s started in Tunisia with the overthrow of the then president after 23 years of his being in power. It looked as if Tunisia was the one nation convulsed by the Arab Spring to achieve a measure of democracy, but it has slipped back into authoritarianism.
In late 2024, President Kais Saied won a second term with more than 90% of the vote in a presidential election with a 28.8% turnout. Five political parties had urged people to boycott the elections.
Tunisia was hit by two terror attacks on foreign tourists in 2015, the first killing 22 people at the Bardo National Museum, and the latter killing 38 people at the Sousse beachfront.
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A review of the new film “One Battle After Another”
September 27th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
A film by Paul Thomas Anderson is never boring and once again he has written, produced and directed a work that is fresh and original, weird but wonderful. It’s four years since we tasted his “Licorice Pizza” but the wait was worth it. None of the characters are credible, instead they are essentially caricatures, and as the narrative develops the whole thing becomes more and more surreal. I found the music too much and too loud, but otherwise the movie is a delight.
At its heart is the relationship between a one-time far-Left revolutionary and his daughter. The father is played by Leonardo DiCaprio who is simply wonderful. His would-be nemesis, a military figure with the ironic name Steven Lockjaw, is portrayed by Sean Penn who is terrific. The mother is the sassy Regina Hall and there is Benico Del Toro as a supporter of the cause. For no obvious reason, the revolutionaries are called the French 75 and then there is a secret society of white supremacists with the ridiculous name Christmas Adventurers Club. It’s that kind of film, never more absurdist than when the DiCaprio figure can’t remember a key password.
Running throughout the work is the explosive issue of immigration which has never been more central to American politics at a time of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. There are extremists supporting Mexican migrants and a military machine opposing them that might have looked excessive at the time the film was made but not at the time of its release. There is some stunning cinematography and memorable imagery, but it’s long, it’s violent, it’s crazy.
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Which countries have more than one capital?
September 26th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Eswatini (formally known as Swaziland) has its administrative capital in Mbabane and its legislative and royal capital in Lobamba.
Bolivia has its constitutional capital and seat of judiciary in Sucre and seat of government, executive and legislature in La Paz.
South Africa has Pretoria as its government capital, Cape Town as it legislative capital and Bloemfontein as its judicial capital.
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Which countries have no capital?
September 25th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Switzerland has no official capital in its constitution. Instead Bern is the federal city and the site of the government.
Nauru has no official capital. The government offices are located in the district of Yaren which functions as the seat of government.
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