Carthage must be destroyed (Tunisia 2025)

[kileskus]

Tunis - Sousse - Kerkouane


The view across the Gulf of Tunis that one would've had from Carthage

I got 3 weeks' leave in April/May, and given the NHL playoffs were on and I was overdue to see my eye surgeon in Montréal, I decided to take a trip back home. The whole trip belongs in the travel mistakes thread, starting from the extra $1.4k and one day I spent to bypass LAX (after the tariff threats and the comments about the 51st state, I've foresworn Jack Daniels and US lay/stopovers). Then I nearly missed check in, had to scramble for accommodation in Vancouver (!!) after realising at 6 p.m. that I'd forgotten to book anything, and then found out I'd booked my flight to Toronto the day after the Toronto-Florida playoff game I'd bought a $400 ticket to. I also had a job interview I forgot to schedule my travel around. And, I never managed to book in to see my busy surgeon.

To top it all off, after a couple of drunken phone calls to friends which I don't completely remember, I booked a 4-day trip-within-a-trip to Tunis from Montréal, redeeming 75k Qantas points (and $500 in fees) for a RAM business class flight to Tunis via Casablanca and then forked out for a flight back to Montréal. I had to present to ED during that trip so lost the good part of one of those four days.

Tunisia is not a country I'd consider visiting sober, as my interests lie in the post-Soviet sphere. But apart from Russia/the USSR, Carthage was the other part of history class that I didn't fall asleep learning about. I had looked at a map of the Phoenician empire 10 years ago and thought those cities in Lebanon and Tunisia were a long-off dream.



Phoenicia was a nation based out of Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon) that is credited for pioneering maritime trade. They traded all over the Mediterranean and pioneered financial and maritime developments. They built cities along the coast at points that roughly corresponded to how far their ships could travel at that time. One such city was Carthage, founded in 814 BC in what is now Tunis by the Phoenician princess Dido, as legend goes (she would later kill herself on a funeral pyre after her lover the Trojan prince Aeneus leaves her as he's too preoccupied with, I don't know, founding Rome).

Towards the 6th C BC Tyre began to decline and Carthage became an imperial metropole in its own right. It had three wars with Rome over a couple of centuries and while each had a different casus belli one could say that Rome felt threatened by Carthage's power. In the lead-up to the third war, Cato the elder (whose oratorial talents are much extolled in Plutarch) in front of the Senate shook out a fig from his robes and held it up, to symbolise both the moral decay and abundance of the land from which he'd took it, and proclaimed, "Carthage must be destroyed."

For inspiration, I looked to henleybeach's and RooFlyer's trip reports but there's not a lot on AFF on Tunisia. So I thought I'd make this report of my short trip there. It'll be full of whinges, misadventures, musings and inaccuracies probably, but hopefully some useful information for anyone planning to go there. Happy to be corrected or enlightened about anything I write (esp about Carthage or the Arab world). It'll be focused on Punic sites (Punic - related to the Phoenicians) and therefore southern Tunisia won't be touched, however there are a lot of interesting geographical and palaeontological sites (e.g. preserved dinosaur tracks) in the south that would be worth a visit.

 

[kileskus]

YUL - CMN - TUN (Royal Air Maroc)

This was my first international J experience (NZ doesn't count of course). RAM uses the Air France lounge at YUL. It had a little Concorde model and self-service bar with a decent selection of spirits, both features being pleasing to me. However showers cost $20 and I was feeling a bit grotty after what had been a bit of a Saturday night out on Saint-Laurent blvd.



The 1st floor of the lounge. There was a 2nd floor too but the sounds of children playing there kept me away

The 6-hour Transatlantic flight to Casablanca was on a 787-8. A non-alcoholic welcome drink and a canapé plate were provided, and orders for lunch taken, before take-off. The crew were friendly and efficient. We took off 45 mins behind schedule.





The seat wasn't completely lie-flat but it was close enough that I could snatch a few hours of broken sleep. An amenity kit, blanket, and pillow (mine was stained, but I don't use pillpws anyway) were provided. The cabin was hot even in t-shirt and shorts which made it hard to sleep.



The inflight entertainment had a limited selection of international movies and a handful of Arabic ones that didn't appeal to my preference for bangs, blasts and bombs. There was traditional Moroccan music in the audio section, but again overall limited selection. I opted for the flight map which I found to be one of the better flight maps I've experienced. There were views from port and starboard sides, as well as coughpit and overhead. The map had this feature where you could find basic information on some of the cities/towns that you passed:


Lunch was served shortly after take-off. I had the salmon starter and it was a more generous portion than I expected:



The chicken tajine as the main. It tasted better than it looks, tender and flavourful

This was followed by a cheese plate. I accepted it for the experience but personally don't understand how people can eat chunks of cheese like that in one sitting. I was already gaining a waistline from the combination of smoked meat sandwiches and gym-less accommodation from my trip so far.


A 'snack' was provided 2 hrs before landing.

Business class passengers got their own tarmac bus to the gate at CMN. We arrived at around midnight and I had a 7-hr transit so when I asked staff for directions to the lounge they kept directing me to the transit desk to book a hotel. They insisted it was free but with such zeal I got suspicious. I wasn't planning to sleep (had work to do and was deathly scared of missing the next leg - I'd recently had an experience of sleeping through boarding for a flight and wasn't keen to relive it) so wanted to hang in the lounge for the booze but couldn't find it and ended up at the transit desk anyway. I asked for the lounge there but they ignored me and printed out a hotel voucher instead.

My suspicion was unfounded. The room they put me in at the Sky airport hotel was indeed free and fairly nice, but it was hot.
I was able to have a good shower and then promptly checked out four hours later to find the Zénith lounge. The main entrance you find directed to on signage wasn't open when I went - there's another entrance on the floor below that I suspect is more used. Alcoholic drinks are on enquiry only and I didn't end up having much because of that extra barrier.




The pastry selection. They also had hot breakfast foods and some sandwiches, wraps and salads.

The plane to TUN was a 737 MAX with business class seats like VA. A welcome drink of Moroccan mint tea was provided, and a breakfast shortly after take-off.



I enjoyed looking out the window on this flight as this is my first time really seeing this region. We went over the farmland and mountains of Morocco and I could imagine the landscapes Antoine Saint-Exupéry must have seen on his flights over North Africa that inspired Wind, Sand and Stars:


Then it was over to the southern coast of Spain - thought I could spy, but probably not, the Strait of Gibraltor - and then over Sardinia (one of the key players in the First Punic War) and finally the Gulf of Tunis and then Tunis itself coming into view.

All in all, it was a pleasant trip and I would say I liked Royal Air Maroc. However, three things gave me pause: the high fees on redeeming an award flight ($500 on top of the 75k Qantas points), the lack of proactive offering of drinks and top-ups, and the fact that announcements were in Arabic and French only. This last wasn't an issue, but I found it surprising. For the 21st century, and from a major flag carrier, you would expect some English. I wasn't sure the FAs spoke it either since they didn't offer to despite my very bad accent, and as a good Montreal Anglo™ who's a bit traumatised by the language problem™, I didn't ask for it.

Immigration at TUN was a deathly long line rivalling YUL security. Taxi drivers at the arrivals area charged around 30 dinars (15 AUD) for a trip to the city centre, which was a complete rip-off by Tunisian standards. Walk a bit out of the airport onto the main autoroute and flag any taxi there and the trip will be around 6-10 dinars. We went to the hotel to drop off bags and then it was on to the first stop: the ruins of Carthage.

 

[RooFlyer]

smoked meat sandwiches

Quick side-track - who does the best smoked meat in Montreal these days? I had the privilege of partaking at Ben's.

 

[Telemachus]

Tunis - Sousse - Kerkouane

View attachment 443889
The view across the Gulf of Tunis that one would've had from Carthage

I got 3 weeks' leave in April/May, and given the NHL playoffs were on and I was overdue to see my eye surgeon in Montréal, I decided to take a trip back home. The whole trip belongs in the travel mistakes thread, starting from the extra $1.4k and one day I spent to bypass LAX (after the tariff threats and the comments about the 51st state, I've foresworn Jack Daniels and US lay/stopovers). Then I nearly missed check in, had to scramble for accommodation in Vancouver (!!) after realising at 6 p.m. that I'd forgotten to book anything, and then found out I'd booked my flight to Toronto the day after the Toronto-Florida playoff game I'd bought a $400 ticket to. I also had a job interview I forgot to schedule my travel around. And, I never managed to book in to see my busy surgeon.

To top it all off, after a couple of drunken phone calls to friends which I don't completely remember, I booked a 4-day trip-within-a-trip to Tunis from Montréal, redeeming 75k Qantas points (and $500 in fees) for a RAM business class flight to Tunis via Casablanca and then forked out for a flight back to Montréal. I had to present to ED during that trip so lost the good part of one of those four days.

Tunisia is not a country I'd consider visiting sober, as my interests lie in the post-Soviet sphere. But apart from Russia/the USSR, Carthage was the other part of history class that I didn't fall asleep learning about. I had looked at a map of the Phoenician empire 10 years ago and thought those cities in Lebanon and Tunisia were a long-off dream.

View attachment 443890

Phoenicia was a nation based out of Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon) that is credited for pioneering maritime trade. They traded all over the Mediterranean and pioneered financial and maritime developments. They built cities along the coast at points that roughly corresponded to how far their ships could travel at that time. One such city was Carthage, founded in 814 BC in what is now Tunis by the Phoenician princess Dido, as legend goes (she would later kill herself on a funeral pyre after her lover the Trojan prince Aeneus leaves her as he's too preoccupied with, I don't know, founding Rome).

Towards the 6th C BC Tyre began to decline and Carthage became an imperial metropole in its own right. It had three wars with Rome over a couple of centuries and while each had a different casus belli one could say that Rome felt threatened by Carthage's power. In the lead-up to the third war, Cato the elder (whose oratorial talents are much extolled in Plutarch) in front of the Senate shook out a fig from his robes and held it up, to symbolise both the moral decay and abundance of the land from which he'd took it, and proclaimed, "Carthage must be destroyed."

For inspiration, I looked to henleybeach's and RooFlyer's trip reports but there's not a lot on AFF on Tunisia. So I thought I'd make this report of my short trip there. It'll be full of whinges, misadventures, musings and inaccuracies probably, but hopefully some useful information for anyone planning to go there. Happy to be corrected or enlightened about anything I write (esp about Carthage or the Arab world). It'll be focused on Punic sites (Punic - related to the Phoenicians) and therefore southern Tunisia won't be touched, however there are a lot of interesting geographical and palaeontological sites (e.g. preserved dinosaur tracks) in the south that would be worth a visit.

You had me (and others no doubt) at the thread title: I can’t help responding positively to any reminder, somewhat rare in today’s world, of the benefits of studying the classics. However, if you’re going to quote Cato the Elder, perhaps all your posts in this thread should conclude with ‘Carthago delenda est’? And then you provide a St Exupéry reference which removes any doubt we’re on the same page! Very much enjoying your TR and style.

 

[Seat0B]

It'll be focused on Punic sites (Punic - related to the Phoenicians)

Better not try typing that whilst not entirely sober @kileskus

I am very interested in this as Tunisia is (surprisingly) on my list of possible side trips from the UAE when we next visit Seat Son, probably in 2026.

 

[kileskus]

Quick side-track - who does the best smoked meat in Montreal these days? I had the privilege of partaking at Ben's.

I think Schwartz's retains its supremacy, but Smoke Meat Pete and Snowdon Deli are also pretty good. Never been to Ben's so can't compare. I personally went to Dunn's a lot more than others just because it is located a few minutes' walk from the train station/Bonaventure metro station and they're pretty highly rated too. But honestly I'm the wrong person to ask - I used to get the packaged smoked meat from IGA and make my own sandwiches and they tasted just fine.

I am very interested in this as Tunisia is (surprisingly) on my list of possible side trips from the UAE when we next visit Seat Son, probably in 2026.

I didn't go to many places apart from a few Carthaginian sites, but it seems like Tunisia has a lot to offer. There are some other Carthaginian sites (e.g. Dougga and Zama) as well as Kairouan which is known for its Arabic history. The central and southern parts also have a lot of geological and palaentological sites of note.

There is significant socioeconomic disparity between the coastal regions and the inland regions, mainly due to the coastal regions being (obviously) economically important. Under the French regime little development was put into the inland areas and that trend has continued in the Republic era. The Jasmine Revolution understandably started in a city in central Tunisia. So that disparity might also also be interesting to observe. I'm not sure I would ever go back to Tunisia due to the number of countries I want to visit and what is looking like a career with limited opportunities for leave, but if I could (maybe in retirement but that's decades away) I would travel more to the centre and the south.

I can’t help responding positively to any reminder, somewhat rare in today’s world, of the benefits of studying the classics

When I was in high school the classics were already out of fashion and history class, from what I saw before dropping out, didn't go very in depth. I think it's a great loss to live in a Western society without being familiar with the origins of Western tradition, and it also impedes engagement with and comprehension of texts and events from up to the last century where references were made to and inspiration drawn from the classics. My title is merely clickbait though - I'm much more sympathetic to Carthage than to Rome so I won't be signing off with that particular phrase!

 

[kileskus]

Tunis

To get to Carthage from downtown Tunis, you can take a bus from the Tunis Marine train station to the northeast. There used to be a train that runs there but what happened to the train I don’t know. Public transport options aren’t displayed on Google Maps, so we just got off approximately where the main archaeological site is and took a roundabout route down a few side roads to get there. In retrospect taxi would’ve been much easier. Along the way we saw the compound of the presidential palace and I took a quick snap of one of the buildings (not the main palace, which I think is hidden inside the compound) before the soldiers guarding it yelled at me and came after me so I put my phone away.


When Dido and her entourage first landed in North Africa, she was offered by the local tribe chieftain the amount of land that could be covered by an ox hide. So, she cut up a hide into strips and laid them out so that they covered a hill, later to be called Byrsa (“ox hide”) Hill. It was here that Carthage was built.


Byrsa Hill with the Gulf of Tunis in the background. The cedar tree was planted in the 19th C to invoke Dido's Phoenician (Lebanese) roots.

Over the next couple of centuries Carthage would grow its dominance over Mediterranean trade and become the main naval power in the region. Though referred to as an ‘empire’, to my knowledge Carthage’s regional expansion was motivated mainly by commercial considerations, involving coastal cities with favourable geography for shipping and rarely venturing inland. (I suppose one could argue this is analogous to endorsing Rome’s ‘defensive imperialism’ – the concept widely and without nuance accepted up til the 1970s that Rome didn't have a unified, intentional doctrine of expansion, and that its acquisition of territory was a byproduct of defending itself, its morals, or its allies.)

Unlike Rome, the social structure in Carthage was based solely on wealth and not public or military achievements. Given the lack of a pervasive martial culture, throughout the Punic Wars Carthage would draw its army not from its citizens, but predominantly a mix of mercenaries and warriors from allied tribes.

I am about to turn this post into a Wikipedia page and provide as simplified a recap of the Punic Wars as I can without missing out on important contextual points, for those who didn’t study it in school or need a refresher. This will explain why I like the story of Carthage so much that I made this trip to Tunisia, and why I chose specific places to visit on this short trip. The TLDR is: Rome and Carthage fought, Rome burned Carthage and its libraries, so what we now know of Carthage is predominantly hearsay. Rome would then build on top of most of Carthage’s cities in Africa, so today very few genuine Punic ruins remain.

Spoiler: First Punic War

In 480 BC, Carthage and the Greek cities in Sicily, mainly Syracuse, began a series of wars over control of Sicily, of which Carthage controlled the western part. These wars involved a lot of back and forth, and the seventh and final war concluded in 306 with Carthaginian forces withdrawing from newly captured territory in eastern Sicily after Syracuse went to Africa to try to attack Carthage itself. There was little territorial gain on either side.

After the seventh war, a group of soldiers called the Mamertines that had initially been mercenaries for Syracuse took over the city of Messina in the northeastern tip of Sicily and used that as a base to plunder the countryside and attack merchant ships. They’re often described as “pirates” or “bandits” (or “a barbarous people about Messina” in Plutarch’s words) which is accurate in terms of their activities, but I think the connotations of those words fail to capture that the Mamertines numbered about 10,000 and while they didn’t have a particularly well thought out social organisation, they still managed to run Messina for a couple of decades.

In 280 the Pyrrhic War between Rome and the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus began after Tarentum asked Pyrrhus for help. Carthage allied itself with Rome during this war. After Pyrrhus’s uh, pyrrhic victories in Italy, he answered a call from some Sicilian Greek states to help rid them of the Mamertines so he went to attack Sicily, including the Carthaginian territories. Carthage lost a lot of its territory during this campaign, but Pyrrhus returned to Italy to help Tarentum again. As he left Sicily, he reportedly said, “How brave a field of war do we leave, my friends, for the Romans and Carthaginians to fight in.”

In 265 Syracuse again tried to get rid of the Mamertines, who asked Carthage for help. Carthage sent a garrison, but the Mamertines didn’t much like their help so asked Rome for help. Rome was initially hesitant, having not forayed outside of Italy much until then, but not liking the idea of Carthaginian control over Sicily and the concomitant dominance over the Mediterranean, answered the call. Carthage allied with Syracuse. The First Punic War, which lasted until 241, saw some epic naval battles that the Romans mostly won due to their martial discipline, shipbuilding speed, and ability to raise troops, despite the Carthaginians’ better sailing skills and more manoeuvrable ships. During the latter half of the war, Carthage carried out a successful guerrilla campaign on land against the Romans, led by a general called Hamilcar Barca. In one of these battles, his 12-year-old son Hannibal made an oath that he would hate the Romans for the rest of his life.

When Carthage capitulated, Hamilcar was asked by his senate to negotiate a peace treaty on any terms possible. The final treaty involved heavy reparations and the complete loss of Sicily and Sardinia. A geographical border of the Ebro River in Spain was also drawn – Carthage was not to interfere north of it, nor Rome south of it. Afterwards, the mercenaries who had fought for Carthage, unpaid, rebelled and besieged the city and attacked some other Carthaginian cities. Hamilcar led a series of battles against them and put down the rebellion, with much brutality. He then moved to Spain to expand Carthaginian territory, making use of the silver mines and fertile lands. He founded a city called New Carthage in modern-day Cartagena, where he would raise his sons.

Spoiler: Second Punic War

For the next decades Carthage struggled with the burden of the treaty from the first war in a way that has been compared to Germany after WWI. Polybius’s account of the Punic Wars is the most reliable and intact and he notes the terms involving the loss of Sardinia and Corsica to be particularly unjust. In any case, Rome ended up making an alliance with the city of Saguntum, south of the Ebro. In 219, Hannibal Barca besieged and sacked Saguntum, and the Second Punic War kicked off. (I think the point about the Ebro is often excluded from modern retellings of the war, not helped by the lack of reliable ancient sources as Polybius’s account of the second war is incomplete. Hannibal was belligerent to the point the Carthaginian senate had trouble restraining him at times, and Saguntum provided tangible agricultural benefits in an era when supplying an army was always a major challenge, but to say Carthage started the war as I sometimes hear is, I think, an oversimplification. I’ll get off my high horse now.)

Hannibal crossed the alps with his elephants etc. and almost everywhere he passed through from Spain to Italy, he managed to turn the allegiance of the locals, whittling down Rome’s list of allies, and gain more troops for his army. He came within inches of Rome but decided, strategically, not to attack.

In 213, during this war, Syracuse, which had remained an independent city after the first war while the rest of Sicily came under Roman control, had its pro-Roman king die and pro-Carthaginian elements came into power under the new regime. This precipitated the 2-year-long Roman Siege of Syracuse, famous for Archimedes’s siege machines. When Rome overran the city, most of the local population was killed or enslaved. One soldier came across some old man drawing in the sand, who said to him, “Do not disturb my circles!” The soldier killed him for his insolence, only to find out that it was the Archimedes they had expressly been ordered to take alive.

Rome would then attack Carthage itself, with the help of the Numidians. The Numidians were a local North African tribe from Tunisia who had cohabited peacefully with the Carthaginians up to that point. But their new king thought favourably of Rome because of its assistance in his rise to power. Hannibal was recalled to Africa but lost the defence, and a new peace treaty was made in 201 that saw Carthage lose all of its overseas territories and be forbidden from waging war again without Roman permission.

Hannibal became a politician in Carthage, reaching the post of suffrete, which was analogous to a Roman consul. He enacted anti-corruption reforms, among other things. But he’d never had the full support of Carthage even during the war, and now with the peace with Rome and even more enemies due to his political reforms, he feared being handed over to Rome and went into self-exile, going from one kingdom to another and occasionally commanding more wars. The Romans eventually found him and surrounded the castle he was living in, near what is now Izmit in Turkey. According to Livy he had some poison that he had saved for such an occasion, and he took it then to avoid capture. His famous last words: “Let us relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death.”

Spoiler: Third Punic War

In 149, Carthage attacked the Numidians, who were still Roman allies and were causing trouble by raiding the Carthaginian cities. Rome took this as a violation of the treaty. After a few attempts, it managed to lay siege to the city. When the walls were finally breached, Carthage burned for seven days until everything had been destroyed – except for one small quarter that was left in half-ruins. 50,000 slaves were taken, with the rest of the population being killed (sources vary between 500,000 to 800,000 total living there). The libraries were burned too, and the books that didn’t were given to the Numidians except for Mago’s treatise on agriculture that the Romans took back with them as a souvenir.

Personally, I find it tragic and puzzling that no Carthaginian texts have survived to today except for Mago’s treatise. Where did the books given to the Numidians go? What’s more, Carthage was a mercantile nation and had a lot of contact with other states in the Mediterranean and, therefore, one would assume, cultural exchange. The people worshipped Bacchus and Demeter and seemed to have a bit of an Egyptian craze. The Jewish merchants of antiquity who travelled the Silk Road left their texts along the way, and the locals along the way wrote about them. Why did Carthage not leave its texts in Egypt and Greece, for example, and why were they not written about in Egypt and Greece? The main sources we have not only on the wars but Carthage itself are Polybius, who was an eyewitness of the third war, and Livy who came over a century later and summarised the parts of Polybius that have been since lost.

After Carthage was burned, the Roman province of Africa set its capital in the former Carthaginian city of Utica. Caesar on his African campaign built a Roman city on top of Carthage’s remains so most of the archaeological sites in this sector are Roman. Only a small Punic Quarter remains at the main site. I have this little picture in my head of Caesar gesturing over it and saying, look at the magnanimity we Romans grant to our enemies – we have left this part of Carthage intact.



Carthaginian houses were likely two-storey with the bedrooms on the second floor, so the ground floor shows living/reception rooms, kitchens and washrooms. The columns in the back were built by the Romans and don’t have any function. According to the interpretative signs, they were meant to “stabilise” the scene, which I suppose is the architectural equivalent of counterpoint.


Some Carthaginian columns

Other archaeological sites in the Carthage sector are Roman, including the baths, but at this point I had a bit of a medical issue. It was nothing major but required treatment so we left Carthage and for the rest of the day only went to the places near our hotel in the city centre later that afternoon after I had been fixed. I didn’t get the chance to go back to Carthage after as I’d planned to visit other cities in my remaining time in Tunisia.



The main square


The souk


The Ez-Zitouna mosque from the outside. As an infidel I wasn't allowed in, but my companion who is Muslim took some photos from the inside and the courtyard.



Minarets throughout North Africa tend to be square, likely a remnant from the Umayyad dynasty after their conquest of North Africa.

On the fourth day, before heading to the airport for my flight back to Canada, we went to the Bardo National Museum, which is in the southwest of the city. It houses an extensive collection of Roman mosaics and some Punic artefacts, but most artefacts from Carthage are at the Carthage museum that is currently closed for renovation. The museum is in a palace built during the 16th C during the Hafsid occupation of Tunis.


A tablet in the shape of Tanit, the main goddess of the Phoenicians. She is the consort of the other main god, Baal Hammon.

The hamsa sign (hamsa meaning five in Arabic) is used as an amulet to ward off evil in North Africa and the Middle East. It's unclear the exact origins of the sign but one theory is that it originated as the hand of Tanit/Baal Hammon (there is a statue of Baal Hammon at the museum but his right hand has been lost to the vagaries of time). You can see it around in Tunisia:

Some street in Tunis with the hamsa on the wall behind.


More Punic writing


Some scarab beetles, their significance taken from Egypt but relayed with local crafting techniques. Evidence of the cultural exchange to be expected of a mercantile nation


A Roman mosaic of Neptune


A mosaic depicting @Telemachus 's father and the sirens in all their bird-legged glory

Not far from the museum is Hadrian's aqueduct, used to supply water to Carthage. It was destroyed when the Vandals sacked the city in 439 AD and made it their capital. The Byzantines retook it in 533 and rebuilt the aqueduct.



As for food in the city (or in Tunisia in general) I can't comment much as I mainly had shawarmas which are just like kebabs. At sit-down restaurants they give a bread basket like the French, usually with hummus. The hotel had a breakfast that included bsissa, a mixture of ground barley, wheat, and nuts. It's supposed to be eaten mixed with olive oil or honey or drunk mixed with water or milk. I found it somewhat similar to tahini in consistency and it tasted a little like peanut butter so preferred to have it spread over bread.

It seems very carb heavy and is especially liked for suhur (the pre-fasting meal) during Ramadan. It was suitable for us as we had two long days ahead, with Sousse next in the plan.

 

[andye]

I think Schwartz's retains its supremacy, but Smoke Meat Pete and Snowdon Deli are also pretty good. Never been to Ben's so can't compare. I personally went to Dunn's a lot more than others just because it is located a few minutes' walk from the train station/Bonaventure metro station and they're pretty highly rated too. But honestly I'm the wrong person to ask - I used to get the packaged smoked meat from IGA and make my own sandwiches and they tasted just fine.


I didn't go to many places apart from a few Carthaginian sites, but it seems like Tunisia has a lot to offer. There are some other Carthaginian sites (e.g. Dougga and Zama) as well as Kairouan which is known for its Arabic history. The central and southern parts also have a lot of geological and palaentological sites of note.

There is significant socioeconomic disparity between the coastal regions and the inland regions, mainly due to the coastal regions being (obviously) economically important. Under the French regime little development was put into the inland areas and that trend has continued in the Republic era. The Jasmine Revolution understandably started in a city in central Tunisia. So that disparity might also also be interesting to observe. I'm not sure I would ever go back to Tunisia due to the number of countries I want to visit and what is looking like a career with limited opportunities for leave, but if I could (maybe in retirement but that's decades away) I would travel more to the centre and the south.


When I was in high school the classics were already out of fashion and history class, from what I saw before dropping out, didn't go very in depth. I think it's a great loss to live in a Western society without being familiar with the origins of Western tradition, and it also impedes engagement with and comprehension of texts and events from up to the last century where references were made to and inspiration drawn from the classics. My title is merely clickbait though - I'm much more sympathetic to Carthage than to Rome so I won't be signing off with that particular phrase!

I always thought that Hannibal was a more appealing hero than his Roman contemporaries, so am sympathetic to the Carthaginian cause

 

[kileskus]

Sousse

We were up bright and early the next day for breakfast and then to take the 0730 train to Sousse. The intercity train station is located walking distance from the city centre. There’s no online booking system and the Tunisian rail website is kind of dodgy, so I wasn’t confident that their timetables were up to date. For this line at least it was.



Sousse is an eastern coastal city on the line that terminates at Sfax, the second biggest city in the country. The trip to our destination was about 2.5 hours, passing by small towns with their tall square minarets and a lot of olive groves.



I passed the time by brushing up on basic Arabic. In uni I started a linguistics degree specialising in Slavic languages and enrolled in an Arabic course for a bit of spice and variety. I couldn’t keep pace and dropped out when I found that not only did you have to learn the alphabet, but each letter changes depending on its position in the word. Vowels, which are optional in written Arabic (like they are in Hebrew), will also change the way a letter looks. Everyone in urban Tunisia speaks French so I got by with that, but it is helpful sometimes to be able to say and read some basic Arabic words. +1 can read Arabic letters due to study of the Koran but her vocabulary is limited to a few religion-related words. She “looks Tunisian” according to the locals and was addressed frequently in Arabic, which gave me no small amount of mirth watching her incomprehension.


First class seats


Second class seats. We had accidentally sat in first class before the ticket inspector sent us this way, and honestly I found these more comfortable. The seat I'd had in the first class compartment had threatened to disconnect from the frame every time I shifted.

Sousse is an eastern coastal city established in the 11th C BC by the Phoenicians. Its establishment predates that of Carthage’s but it ended up becoming a Carthaginian city after Tyre’s decline. The original Punic name has been lost – after the third war, the Romans called it Hadrumentum and that’s the name used now to refer to Sousse in antiquity. Hadrumentum was where Caesar landed on his African campaign against the Republican holdouts in Africa, and where he famously tripped upon coming ashore but covered himself by grabbing the dirt and declaring, “I have you now, Africa!”


The main square

Tunis, as one taxi driver told me, is for business and administration, while Sousse is for loisir. Walking around Tunis one rarely sees buildings in construction, but in Sousse there are new buildings built and being built, and some sparkling hotels and seaside resorts around.

The archaeological museum contains the second-largest collection of Roman mosaics after the one in Tunis. It also contains Punic votive stelae (tablets used for prayer/worship) from a nearby sanctuary dedicated to Baal Hammon. The museum is housed in the kasbah, the fortress located in the medina (city centre).






This sanctuary has stelae with three main motifs: the bactylus, Tanit, and the bottle in the order I've put. This is different from the icons found at the Carthage sanctuary which featured Tanit and Baal Hammon more and less of the bottle.

The urns carry the remains of sacrifical sheep (no infant bones here apparently, but in other Punic sanctuaries infant and sheep bones were found in the same urns or the same burial plots).


Phoenician/Carthaginian infant sacrifices have been attested to in the Bible as well as in Greek and Roman sources from the 4th C BC. This was likely performed at places called tophets (a Biblical word) by wealthier families who would sacrifice a newborn for particularly special favours or as response to what they thought was a favour being granted by Baal Hammon/Tanit. If they didn’t have a newborn, they could buy one from poorer families. For a while in the latter half of the 20th C this practice was debated and viewed as anti-Carthaginian propaganda (especially by Tunisian scientists), with the revisionist theory that those tophets were where stillborn babies or those who died in infancy were buried, but a 2014 review of osteological evidence combined with associated archaeological findings and historical evidence has found that child sacrifice likely did occur. The museum maintains the view that it did not. In any case, evidence shows that it continued to be practiced in Carthage even after it became phased out in Phoenicia.


A Byzantine baptismal font covered in mosaics - few of these have been found globally


Roman mosaic of Medusa, with a thoughtfully positioned mirror. This is how I've made it back alive instead of dying a stone statue in Tunisia.



Some more mosaics

We spent all morning in the museum (mainly me in the Punic room) and then went to explore the city. Little of Hadrumentum remains as the Umayyads completely sacked the city during their North Africa conquest. When the Arab Aghlabids came in the 9th C AD, they built the ribat and the mosque that still stand today.

The ribat is also a fortress but used more at the edge of a city as opposed to a kasbah, from what I understand.


It's extremely well preserved for any 9th C fortress, not to mention one located in a city that was bombed in WWII.



Like in Istanbul, there are a lot of stray cats around in Tunis and Sousse. This mother chose the second level of the ribat to raise her remaining kitten.

As I said at the start, there is a lot I could put into the travel mistakes thread from this trip. As soon as we reached the top level of the ribat, I received a text (still had my Australian SIM in) from my employer reminding me of an interview to renew my contract/potential promotion - at 10 a.m. AEST the next day, which was 1 a.m. that night in Tunisia. I had requested before leaving that the interview be scheduled after my leave, so hadn't been checking my email on the trip and wasn't aware of the interview until the text. Given I would like to not be homeless, I sat down at the fortress and prepared. It was honestly a very peaceful and sunny place to think about professional competencies. +1 went to the mosque and the beach but I don't think she took any photos.

Then it was the 4 p.m. train back to Tunis and a nap before the interview. Which went well I think, except for some angry Arabic in my background (Arabic often sounds angry to me because of the guttural sounds, but even more so when it's 1 a.m. and being shouted on the street outside). Then back to sleep again to wake up fresh for the destination I was most excited about - Kerkouane.

 

[kileskus]

Kerkouane

Kerkouane is a small town next to the remains of a Punic port city whose name has been lost. It was built in the 6th C BC by the Phoenicians, and likely became Carthaginian at some point. It was partially destroyed during the First Punic War and abandoned by the Carthaginians, and the Romans never built on top of it, nor did the Vandals or the later Arabic conquerers come this way. So it's perhaps the best preserved Punic settlement left.



We had difficulty renting a car due to the short duration of the trip, issues with +1's licence, and my inability to drive. To get to Kerkouane we took a louage to Kélibia, the closest city.

A louage (from the French word louer, to hire) is a minivan with a fixed price that departs for its destination once all the seats have been filled. They're more dependable, frequent and quicker than intercity coaches and trains. There are a couple of stations around Tunis depending on which direction you're heading. For northern destinations like Kélibia, it's the Bab Alioua station. This was about 30 mins walk from the city centre.



The minivans have roof signs that indicate their terminus destination. They're in Arabic only so you should be able to know what your destination looks like or be able to ask in French, as the station is a bit chaotic. We were the first passengers on our minivan and it was about a half hour wait before it filled up. Of the six other passengers, five were women travelling alone.

To Kélibia it was about a 2 hr drive. Kélibia would have been an interesting destination in its own right. It was where the Roman fleet landed for their invasion of Africa after the Battle of Cape Ecnomus in the First Punic War. Cape Ecnomus was one of, if not the largest naval battle in history, with a combined 300,000 troops involved. See this video for a description of the tactics and the ships each side used, and why Rome eventually won due to their boarding tactics from their corvuses. (While these ships proved useful in battle, they weren't very hardy and Rome lost hundreds of them during storms. But they rebuilt them quickly, something Carthage wasn't able and/or willing to do for their fleet.) There's a fort at Kélibia but it was far from the louage station and I wanted to see Kerkouane first and visit the fort on the way back if there was time.





Some of the mosques we passed on the way. I really like this minaret style.

From the louage station there we took a taxi for the further 20 minutes to the archaeological site at Kerkouane. The driver asked me if we wanted him to wait for us. Anticipating that I would take my time at the ruins, I said no, we'll take another taxi from the city centre at Kerkouane. Because on Google Maps, Kerkouane looked like a town with streets and a centre. He shook his head and said there won't be another taxi back. I was right that I would take hours at the site, and he was right that there would be no taxis back.

The site has a small museum, mainly of ampullae and ceramics, some of which bore clearly Greek-influenced red figure paintings.



A figure of a priestess wearing skulls. Perhaps representing the infants she'd helped sacrifice?

It's a beautiful walk along the seaside with lots of crystallised salt on the rocks, which according to +1 tasted saltier than salt usually does but it tasted normally salty to me. Kerkouane apparently, back in the Punic days, specialised in dye-making and salt production.




The houses here are larger than in Carthage and some have their own courtyards. Most houses have a sewage drainage system that goes onto the street. The Phoenicians did use sewerage systems in their urban planning, but for some reason the remains of Carthage itself don't demonstrate that.

As with the houses in Carthage though, bedrooms were on the second storey so what's seen here are reception rooms and usually spacious kitchens and washrooms.




A house with a courtyard

Another house with a courtyard


Here, the red receptacle is a bathtub. If you look to the left of that, on the ground, there's a circular shape with a path leading off of it - that's the drainage system that drained waste onto the street.

We spent a couple of hours examining these ruins and then went to necropolis that's about 30 mins' walk away and supposedly takes you through the main street of Kerkouane, according to Maps. That street was a dirt track and there were no shops or restaurants or any other person in sight.



The necropolis is kind of just sitting in the open with zero signage around indicating its existence or significance, a series of tombs on top of a small hill. It's the most intact remaining Punic necropolis in the world but its contents were mostly looted, with what remained going to foreign museums. Wealthy Phoenicians were often buried with urns containing valuables. There are numbers written above the entrances to the tombs, which were probably from the archaeologists who excavated them.





We went into a few of these tombs as most have been left open. They seemed to vary in size, maybe from 0.5 m² to 3 from the ones we saw. But it was late afternoon aleady so we didn't see all of them.

It was time to go to the town 'centre', which involved what looked like a road on Maps but was a path through a wheat field. We came across a farmer leading a herd of cows going in the opposite direction. By this point the lack of humanity and, more importantly, taxis, was of concern.

Then both our phones died. Another half hour and we came across two men hammering away inside a half-built house. The younger one spoke a little French, not that I needed words to communicate that we were two lost tourists. They called a taxi for us and invited us to wait in the house next door, which belonged to the younger man's family. His wife was home. She made us coffee and then told us about Tunisia, how most of the people are Muslim and like Turkish dramas, that there are 24 counties and all the Jews live in one of the southern ones because they "prefer not to live with us".

The taxi came after half an hour and dropped us off back at Kélibia at 7 p.m. There were no more louages to Tunis - the last one being about 3 or 4 p.m. I believe.

So we hired another taxi to take us all the way back to Tunis. A few drivers were hesitant because of the long distance and there's a law restricting the number of taxis that can operate in Tunis. One of them agreed for 150 dinar (~75 AUD) but he said, "It's illegal for me to work there so I will have to drive you like friends," so he took off the roof plate and specifically had my "Tunisian-looking" friend sit in the front. He talked a lot about Turkish dramas during the ride and tried to teach us some Arabic words.

There's a reason tourists go to Kerkouane as part of an organised tour. I don't regret the hours I spent contemplating the ruins though. It's probably the closest one can get to Carthage.

 

[kileskus]

Wrapping up

Tunisia exceeded my expectations and I regret not having more time to spend there. On return to YUL I had to disclose my travel to Tunisia and the immigrations officer asked “Why you go there?” in an almost accusatory tone, but otherwise I don’t think there are any issues with outbreaks of communicable/agricultural diseases etc. I tried to go hiking in Les Éboulements/Charlevoix, one of the most beautiful regions in Québec, but it was storming and it wasn’t much fun wading through mud with zero visibility. Then onto Vancouver where I visited Burnaby and New Westminster (the old capital of BC and an underrated destination, I’m not sure if tourists normally go to the Greater Vancouver areas) and finally back to Melbourne.

Some observations/tips for anyone wanting to visit Tunisia:

There was little harassment or aggressive vendors compared to what I hear Morocco and Algeria are like and Tunis was a lot better than Baku which I’ve been to in that respect. Tunisia is very liberal for a Muslim country. Obviously proper dress is still expected for both men and women in the mosques that allow non-Muslims.

You can get a free SIM card at the airport but I used an e-sim and the internet connection was pretty good.

AUD is hard to exchange even in Tunis. Try to exchange before leaving or bring EUR to exchange if you don’t want to withdraw from an ATM (I didn’t try this, don’t know about the ATM fees). Cash is used a lot and storekeepers etc will often ask you to give exact change if possible or some smaller coins to allow them to give bills as change.

Taxi is the easiest way to get around in cities. They’re everywhere on the main streets so just hail one. Drivers don’t speak English though so learn the French words for your destination and how to give directions, otherwise you can just say “la médina” or “le centre-ville” if your hotel is in the city centre for example and then you can walk from wherever they drop you off at. Ask for the meter (le compteur) to be turned on.

Staff at hotels, resorts, and museums speak English, but otherwise I found English proficiency in general to be quite poor in the general population, even among the younger people. Basic French is quite helpful. The Tunisian Arabic dialect is similar to the Algerian and Moroccan ones, which have a lot more internet resources available, but they understand Modern Standard. If you want to try your hand at Arabic, or already speak it, hats off to you.

It seems fairly safe at night in the city centre as there is a heavy police/military presence due to the government buildings there. But obviously use your judgement, especially if you’re a lone woman.

For intercity travel, it might be better to rent a car. The road infrastructure is quite good, apparently the best in Africa if one of my taxi drivers is to be believed. Otherwise, the louages are really useful. Just make sure to get the right station for your destination if departing from Tunis and then you can tell the taxi driver “station louage ____ [name of station]”. And remember to check the time of the return louages if you’re not staying overnight! Other cities only have one louage station.

Hope to see more TRs about Tunisia on the forum. Thanks for reading.

 

[RooFlyer]

Thank you - a wonderfully detailed and interesting TR as usual. I just had a look at Kerkouane on Google Maps and it looks stunning. I would love to put it on the list, but I’m afraid it’s probably out of reach these days so I do appreciate you taking us there.

 

[Seat0B]

Yes I agree that this was a very informative TR. I love the way you always include a good slice of history and culture in your TRs. Where to next?

 

[drron]

Indeed an excellent TR and informative. Would love to go but doubt I would be able to do it justice.

 

[VPS]

Thank you - a wonderfully detailed and interesting TR as usual. I just had a look at Kerkouane on Google Maps and it looks stunning. I would love to put it on the list, but I’m afraid it’s probably out of reach these days so I do appreciate you taking us there.

Plus one for me too

 

[somebol]

Very informative and nice read. Thank you

 

[Brissy1]

Great TR and I like the history lessons too, thank you. I'd love to visit but I have zero ability at foreign languages, 3 years of school french and all I've got is the gallic