Tunisia Travelogue

We were very busy renovating our central London property when we visited Tunisia. Although it was not the ideal time to take a holiday, we were completely fed up with everything to do with our house. We needed a little break from knocking down walls, building walls, mixing plaster, mixing cement, and all of the dust and dirt that goes along with every renovation. It was winter in the U.K. Neither of us had been to Tunisia before, but we knew it would be warm, and it was the best deal we could get at the time. We flew to Skanes for a week of sun, rest and relaxation.

SKANES

Skanes is a suberb 8km south of Monastir. At the time of our visit most of the hotels were located in Skanes. It seemed like most visitors stayed very close to the beaches outside their hotels. The beaches were very clean and there were a wide variety of watersports available. As we had only travelled to Tunisia to rest, that's exactly what we did. We spent our time relaxing, eating and drinking. The food was very good. I think we tried couscous for the first time, and funnily enough I didn't enjoy it. Now I make it often and I love it. The food was all quite spicy which we both like, lots of aniseed, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, all spices that we use a lot of in our cooking at home. I think our hotel was the Hotel Neptunia Beach, but I am not positive, it was a long time ago. The Hotel Neptunia Beach was right on the beach which was very popular with sunbathers and water sports fans. There were the usual choice of water activities including windsurfing, pedaloes and jet skis. The hotel is situated between two of Tunisia's oldest cities, Monastir and Sousse. Our holiday included breakfast and evening meal although we only ate there once in the evening, which was on the night or our arrival, as we were too lazy to go out. The dining room was large and packed, which meant you had to share tables with other couples, yuk, not for us! After that first evening, we ate out or at the pizzeria terrace cafe, within the hotel gardens by the swimming pool. At least there it was less busy and we did not have to sit with anyone else, the food was good too. Our room was also very good, it was a two storey room with the bedroom upstairs looking down over the main lounge area. There was a good sized clean bathroom, and the lounge had lots of seating, although it was all solid fixed concrete. We had come away to get away from concrete, oh well! The maid came every day and we had nice clean fluffy towels, what more could we want.

I was convinced that I would spend some time on the beach as I was determined to relax. So I dragged Richard round the shops and I finally found a bikini which I wore for about fifteen minutes in total. I had settled myself in a good spot on the sand and sat back relaxing for .... ten minutes, before Richard, who had wandered off came back and asked me if I was ready to go! I was more than happy to go though, as neither of us are beach lovers. I just thought I'd try it, see if I liked it, I didn't, oh well it was worth a try! We would have to find something else to do, not surprising for us we wandered off for a drink. The hotel next to ours was a five star place with a much nicer bar, where we spent quite a lot of our time.

Aside from our very brief stint on the beach we did venture out most days. The most popular tourist places in Tunisia are Carthage, Dougga and El-Jem. We didn't visit any of these! However we did visit the capital Tunis, Monastir and Sousse, and we also went way down south by car. We had hired a car for one day to get us out, but it turned out to be a slightly different day out than we had imagined, but more of that later.

SOUSSE

Sousse is Tunisia's third largest city, a major port and a very popular tourist destination. It was in the old walled medina that we found most of the city's attractions. The walls were an impressive sight, stretching 2.25km at a height of 8m. The ribat (small square fort), which was built at the end of the 8th century AD features a round watchtower which offers excellent views over the city. We spent a good few hours in Sousse wandering round the bustling medina with its busy souks which sold everything from clothes and food to jewellery and perfume. It was quite pleasant walking round, and although we were encouraged to stop and look at everything by eager sellers they were not aggressive. We were happy enjoying the sights and sounds and wonderful smells, the aromas from the pyramid shaped piles of brightly coloured spices were intoxicating. But it was not the experience of the souk that we enjoyed the most, we found a casino. We spent a few hours on the floor, Richard enjoyed playing Black Jack, and being flirted with by a couple of gorgeous women who were playing at the same game. I was happy walking round watching everyone gambling. Once we had had enough of the gambling, we felt like something to eat, so we ventured to the casino restaurant. The food was excellent, it must have been because even after all this time I can remember what we ate. I won't write everything we ate, but I will say that we enjoyed several courses, each of which was served with a refreshing sorbet in between to cleanse the palate. The food was excellent as was the service and the atmosphere, we stayed there for hours before heading back to our hotel.

MONASTIR

We took a taxi to Monastir to visit the fort. Monastir was similar to a lot of other places in that it was a purpose built tourist town. The most impressive landmark in Monastir was the golden domed Bourguiba Mosque, which was the final resting place of the founder of modern day Tunisia and its first president, Habib Bourguiba. It was very clean everywhere in Monastir, even the roads and pavements looked clean and fresh. It had been raining when we first arrived so I guess that's why the roads looked so clean. It was not that busy with tourists, and the local people were friendly. We had lunch in Monastir, can't remember what we ate, something spicy no doubt.

TUNIS

We visited the capital Tunis by train which was a very pleasant journey. We were the only foreigners in our carriage, and were of particular interest to a young boy who was travelling with his mother. He seemed to take a very keen interest in Richard, maybe because at the time Richard was very blonde? The young boy sat with us for some of the journey, during which time he drank almost all of our 2 litre bottle of water, so maybe it wasn't Richard and his lovely golden locks that interested him after all! Tunis had a very modern feel to it, with a European style and tree lined streets. The medina is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The medinas main entrance is through an arched gateway, the Bab el Bahr or Porte de France on Place de la Victoire. The main thoroughfare through the medina was busy with tourists, but there were more authentic souks to be found in the myriad of surrounding alleys. Once again we were enveloped by the most amazing aromas of spices and scents and essential oils. The Bardo Museum is very popular with tourists, it houses one of the world's greatest collections of Roman mosaics. The museum houses archaeological treasures from the Carthaginian, Roman early Christian and Islamic eras. The mosaics in the Roman section are the main attraction, they cover entire floors and walls, most of them nearly completely intact.

WAY DOWN SOUTH!

I'm not exactly sure where we ended up, but we were a long long way from our hotel. Richard had decided that he wanted to hire a car and get away from the area we were staying in. The car rental was all arranged at our hotel and the car was delivered to us there. It was a basic small hatchback. We set off very early in the morning, the plan was to drive for a few hours, stop for some lunch and a walk, and head back to the hotel. Well we drove for a few hours and there never seemed to be anywhere nice to stop. Eventually we did find a nice looking town, where we parked up and then wandered off to get something to eat. I don't think that the local people had ever seen any tourists before, as we were watched intently by everyone. We were very hungry and tried to get some lunch but we couldn't find anywhere serving food :( There was one place but it was men only so that was no good. The time seemed to be going so fast so we decided to get back in the car and head back to the hotel. Hoping to find something on the way back, as we drove a different way back to the route we had driven there. Richard likes to take different routes to and from places if possible, it's more interesting! It was getting dark by now and the roads were not tarmac they were more like rough sand tracks, glad it wasn't our car! After driving for hours we saw a shop open, maybe they would sell something to eat and drink, anything even some sweets would do. Unfortunately they didn't, they did have the head of a camels for sale though, but we didn't fancy one of those! In fact there was a camel head hanging from the wall, blood dripping all over the ground. After this we saw quite a few shacks along the road side with hanging camel heads, by now I was not feeling quite so hungry, can't think why! The road was really hard going, all bumpy and then we came to lots of road works, which made visibility even worse. The dust from the road and the complete lack of any lights except our car headlights made it real slow going. Thankfully there was not much other traffic, apart from a motorbike coming towards us ... wait a minute, as it got closer we realized that it was not actually a small motorbike but a huge truck! It only had one side light on at the front, and obviously really took us by surprise when it was practically level with us and we saw the size of it! After that there were a few more vehicles, all of which only had one light on at the front, I guess light bulbs were expensive in Tunisia. As there were no road markings what so ever, and oncoming vehicles all looked like small mopeds or motorbikes but where in fact great big HGV's, this journey was rapidly turning into a nightmare. We had not eaten anything since the night before and now it was after midnight. We just wanted to get back to the hotel, but what with the condition of the road, and the complete darkness, we were going nowhere fast. Eventually we did arrive back in Skanes, and the lights of our hotel felt so bright after driving in complete darkness for so long, but they were such a welcome sight. Never have two people been so glad to arrive at civilasation! All in all it had not been a perfect day. By now it was the early hours of the morning, we were too tired to get anything to eat, which was just as well as there was nowhere to get anything to eat, even the hotel receptionist was fast asleep. We went straight to bed, both of us just happy to be back safe, and definitely looking forward to breakfast!