Rainy roman ruins

We were quite happy to be back in Tunis after our short tour around the country. Sort of felt like being back home, the old Hotel Maison Doree. In the evenging, we decided to head to La Goulette. I quite fancied seeing La Goulette, having seen the file Vie a La Goulette a couple of years ago – a nice story which highlights the cosmopolitan character La Goulette used to have – just a few decades ago, Muslims, Jews and Christians (mostly French and Italians) lived peacefully side-by-side. That is no longer the case, though (when the father of modern Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, confiscated all foreigners’ property).

So anyway, one TGM trip later, we arrived. La Goulette is the old port of Tunis, and is famed for its fish restaurants – so the idea was to have dinner after a short walk around town. Given that it was dark, and the rain was pouring down, we decided to skip the tour (there isn’t much to see apart from an old Ottoman fort, anyway, apparently), and have dinner straight away. We were quite surprised to find the restaurant very busy – until we realised we were sharing the dining hall with a merry bunch of Japanese tourists. Oh well, the dinner was delicious, we both had fish, naturally.

Our trip was nearing its end, but we still had an excursion planned for Friday – to Dougga. Dougga is a well-preserved Roman site, located about 150 kilometres west of Tunis. We again decided to use the well-proven louage service – to the nearby town of Téboursouk. Since Téboursouk is a rather small town, we had to wait a bit longer than usual this time, but we got there in the end. From there, Dougga was a short taxi ride away.

Well, Dougga certainly impressed us, we were both pretty much awestruck by the place. The site is dramatic, perched as it is on a hilltop, surrounded by olive trees (and pretty big as well, spanning 70 hectares). The ruins themselves are remarkable (and show traces of not only Roman, but also Numidian, Byzantine and Punic eras) – and very well-preserved. The city was founded by the Numidian empire, but was heavily influenced by Carthage, and was finally conquered by the Romans, It became a significant city under Roman rule, and what’s great is that the whole layout of the city can be traced at the site. What was also nice was also the fact that we were pretty much alone at the site (apart from a bunch of hardy English pensioners). What was less great was the weather – we were assailed by a relentless wind, rain and even sleet! It actually made the visit very difficult – we had the impression of running from shelter to shelter (which is not that easy considering these roman ruins tend to lack roofs and the like…

Anyway, we started our visit with the remarkably well preserved theatre, and from there carried on towards the forum, with its well preserved Capitol. The capitol, majestically overlooking the rest of the site, was no doubt the highlight of the site. From there we carried on exploring the site, taking in the various temples, and also the only royal Numidian monument in Tunisia – a tower-shaped mausoleum.

So all in all, we were very impressed with the place. I would go as far as to say it’s the most impressive Roman site I’ve ever seen – with the possible exception of the Forum and Coliseum in Rome (but what I like about Dougga is the fact that the site is so well-contained, and really gives an idea of what a roman city was like). It’s just a real pity about the weather – it did make it very difficult to fully appreciate the site. But hey, no pain, no gain, right? :-)

In the end, we were quite happy to be back on our way to Tunis, anyway (we could still feel the wind in our bones)... We arrived in Tunis quite early, actually, so ended up going to the cinema in the evening. We saw “Sex and the City: the movie” of all films (not really my cup of tea, as the English would say)… What we found quite interesting was the fact that apart from us, the clientele seemed to be mostly lonely middle-aged and old men – perhaps the title led them to expect a different kind of movie? ;-) We finished off with a dinner at the hotel restaurant – not a bad choice as it turned out.

Saturday was our last day in Tunisia, so we decided to spend it doing some last minute visiting and shopping in Tunis. Our first stop was the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Cathedral, on the Avenue Habib Bourguiba. One interesting thing I learnt during the visit was that quite a few of the first popes came from Tunisia, or had Tunisian origins – now that’s an odd fact for the pub quizzes… We then headed on into the medina, where we visited the Zaytuna Mosque (the 2nd oldest mosque in Tunisia). It was all very impressive, and again quite similar to the mosques we’d seen in Sousse and Kairouan. Unfortunately not even the courtyard is accessible to non-Muslims, we could just basically view the inner courtyard from behind a grille.

The last couple of hours were spent shopping. I insisted on buying at least one item in the Souk – after all this is an Arabic country where haggling and buying something is a must-do activity for tourists, right? In the end I ended up acquiring a pretty ashtray for the more than reasonable price of 4 dinars 500 (the about 3 euros). After some last-minute Tunisian pastry shopping, it was time for us to catch a taxi to the airport, and head back to home sweet home….

So what were our impressions of Tunisia then? I think mostly we were positively surprised. I was expecting a much more touristy place – something more like the canary islands. And sure, we did run into a couple of places where tourism is clearly the order of the day (especially in Hammamet). But I suppose we avoided the worst tourist traps, and travelling off season certainly helped. In general, it seems lke a more developed country than for example Egypt, and the fact that everybody speaks French, and street signs etc. are in French, definitely helps. All in all, I could well consider a second visit, perhaps to the south of the country.

More photos here.