Carthage Palace Thalassa La Marsa

The majority of the group enjoys a full-day excursion to the ancient Roman city of Dougga today. This is a first for me, as we didn't include Dougga last year. We head southwest out of Tunis, through fertile lands with grape vineyards and olive groves, glimpsing the occasional jagged peak in the distance northwards.

Our first stop is at the fascinating Andalusian Muslim town called ...

We say goodbye to one tour member this morning. At 10am several of us go with the guide into the medina again. Two of us break away to visit a local hammam. This is an experience more like the one in Morocco, with hard skin scraping and back cracking.

I shop for birthday gifts for one of our tour members, then return to the hotel to get awards and tips organized. The party begins at six ...

Our attempt to leave at 6:30am is thwarted by the fact that someone's phone got knocked off the hook last night, and the wake-up call didn’t come through. Everything happens for a reason, however, and the delay changes our plans so that the day works out better anyway.

When we arrive in Sbeitla to tour the ruins of the 3rd century Roman town of Sufetula, it is clear that no matter how quickly we run through ...

Our first visit today is to the dramatic ruins of Carthage. We visit the remains of the Punic city, the hilltop museum and cathedral, and the elaborate Roman baths by the sea (in the shadow of the Presidential Palace).

Next stop the Mediterranean-style village of Sidi Bou Said, with its bright white buildings with blue doors and shutters. We visit a house of a famous lawyer which is now a museum, then ...

... haha, geez that was lame... hopefully the photos will rescue the situation... Due to the rain we didn't spend as much time there as we would have liked, but we got to potter round the quaint little ...

... we jumped in for a day of sightseeing with the cab driver. Carthage was interesting but nothing compared to the ruins we saw in Turkey and the ones we were about to see in Rome. And after one hour in the town centre we were bored so we were back on the boat with an hour to spare before cruising again. We heard that the boats stop here for cheap fuel - we could see no other reason.

... but the place is packed. In any case, I'll have to keep my entries short and to the point. I don't think I'll have time to visit the Star Wars stuff, since renting a driver and car will cost me about $200/day and I don't have that type of cash on me. If I had more time, I could take the buses to Tozeur and then arrange something from there. Here in Tunis, things seem very expensive, but you get what you pay for...

... located. Remember Carthage from your history class: Hannibal and the elephant army, the Punic Wars, Romans flattening the city and salting its fields, etc. After the defeat of Carthage in 146 BC, the Romans made the area a province and called it a familiar word: Africa. It became a major source of wheat for the empire and a number of wealthy Roman cities grew here. The Bardo Museum has hundreds of mosaics that originally decorated floors in ...

... recommended to travel on the interior of Tunisia during the months of July and August do to extreme heat'. Ah, I thought to myself guidebooks are for freaks and geeks; not the Mellett Machine and so: tossing the guidebook in the bin, to the deserts of North Africa I headed in a 1980's Ford station wagon that looked like it would break down more often than a widow at her husbands funeral. Do you know what I found out there in the desert? Sand. And ****loads of it ...