"Take care of your thoughts when you are alone, and take care of your words when you are with people..."
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(Carthage National Museum)
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Day 02: 10 March 2008
(Tunis – Carthage – Sousse – El Jem – Sfax)
We had breakfast in the hotel and arranged for a car rental. Last night we had plotted our routing to various towns in Tunisia and will be coming back to Tunis at the end of the trip. First stop before we left the city of Tunis was Office de Tourisme where we collected maps and as much brochures as we could on Tunisia tourist attractions and places of interest.
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| (Punic tombs and early Christian chapel) |
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(A Carthaginian god Eschmoun Temple)
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We met the two Asians and together we drove to our first attractions, the ancient ruins of Carthage. The Carthage National Museum is a national museum in Byrsa, about 20 km from City of Tunis. Along with the Bardo National Museum, it is one of the two main local archaeological museums in the region. The edifice sits atop Byrsa Hill, in the heart of the city of Carthage.
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| (Archaeological site on Byrsa Hill) |
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| (Interesting artifacts in the gardens) |
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| (The remains of ancient Antonine bath) |
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| (Roman funerary statues) |
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| (A bas-relief of a woman) |
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(A huge Roman bust)
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| (Mask and Punic stele) |
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| (Urns containing the ashes of children) |
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| (A 3rd-century marble sarcophagus) |
The Carthage National Museum is located near the Cathedral of Saint-Louis of Carthage. It allows visitors to appreciate the magnitude of the city during the Punic and Roman eras. Some of the best pieces found in excavations are limestone/marble carvings, depicting animals, plants and even human sculptures. Of special note is a marble sarcophagus of a priest and priestess from the 3rd century BC, discovered in the necropolis of Carthage. The Museum also has a noted collection of masks and jewellery in cast glass, Roman mosaics including the famous ‘Lady of Carthage’, a vast collection of Roman amphoras. It also contains numerous local items from the period of the Byzantine Empire. Also on display are objects of ivory.
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(A beautiful sunny day in the garden)
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(Carthage Archeological Museum and Sites)
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From Carthage we drove about 165km on the Trans-African Highway to the town of Sousse. Sousse is in the central-east of Tunisia, on the Gulf of Hammamet. The town is considered as one of the best examples of seaward-facing fortifications built by the Arabs with narrow twisted streets, a kasbah and medina, its ribat fortress and long wall on the Mediterranean. Surrounding it is a modern city of long, straight roads and more widely spaced buildings.
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(Driving along beautiful beaches)
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(The Trans-African Highway)
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We drove direct to El-Kantaoui Port, a tourist attraction surrounded by lots of shops, bars and restaurants. The Marina is a nice place to go for a stroll. One could take a trip on the pirate ship, go diving or have a trip on a glass bottomed boat. There is access to the beach from the port.
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| (A tourist center around a large artificial harbour) |
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| (A tour in the pirate ship at El-Kantoui Port) |
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(Intricately decorated pirate ship)
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| (Ribat of Sousse dated back to the Aghlabid era) |
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(A brief visit to the Medina)
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(Pretzels, Tunisian style)
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After spending time at El-Kantaoui Port and a brief visit to the Medina we drove on Autoroute A1 towards El-Jem, about 70 km away. The sun was setting fast when we reached The Roman amphitheater. El Jem was formerly the Roman town of Thysdrus, one of the most important towns in North Africa after Carthage. The amphitheater was built around the middle of the third century AD and was thought to house up to 35,000 spectators. This UNESCO World Heritage colosseum was the second-largest in the Roman world after the Colosseum in Rome. El-Jem amphitheater has been used for filming some of the scenes from the films Life of Brian and Gladiator.
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| (Three levels of
arcade stone blocks) |
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| (Most supporting infrastructure has been preserved) |
It was already dark and we could not find a hotel to stay around the area. We continued driving towards Sfax, about 70 km away and managed to locate a boutique hotel in the middle of town.
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(Checking in late at night)
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