May 2025

One museum everyone visits in Tunisia is the Bardo National Museum in northern Tunis. We started our last day in Tunisia there.

This museum is known for its collection of Roman mosaics which were gathered from various archeological sites including Carthage, El Jem and others. Yes, it was definitely impressive!

We signed up for a walking tour of the medina of Tunis. Our meeting place was in front of the I Love Tunis sign which is in front of the cathedral shown here.

A medina is an old Arab quarter in northern Africa towns. The one in Tunis is not as extensive as the ones in the major cities in Morocco, but, still, there’s enough stuff there to have a glimpse into the local life that’s been going on for 1,300 years.

Street cafes, barber shops, stray cats, meandering alley ways…

Fruit stands, clothing shops, textile stores…

Old schools, mosques of all sizes…

Tunis is not a small city. Almost 7 million people live there after all. But it doesn’t have many skyscrapers or shiny shopping malls. In a way, that sets it apart from most other big urban centers around the globe where big name chain stores and restaurants dot the streets. Does that mean it’s filled with old world charm? Not quite. It’s a lively city still waiting to be discovered. The wrecking balls will follow soon enough, I imagine.

One surprise as we were leaving Tunisia was at the Tunis Airport. It’s a modest airport with not a whole lot going on. There was one counter service cafe in the gate area of the terminal we were in to satisfy the food/drink needs of all the passengers, and we ordered 4 muffins and 4 coffee/tea. US$60! The most overpriced and least satisfying food we had had in a long while!

Interestingly, the shops and restaurants accepted cash in 5 different currencies, but not in Tunisian dinar.

Tunisia itinerary link

May 2025

There’s a big blue lake in the middle of the map of Tunisia called Lake Djerid or Chott de Djerid. I noticed it when I first started planning for a trip to Tunisia & I looked it up. It’s a salt lake which can’t be all that blue!

Then I discovered most organized tours to the desert involved this lake and the town of Tozeur. So on our second day in Douz/Sahara, we drove out to Djerid.

It is the largest salt pan in the Sahara Desert at 1.7 million acres. There’s a 70 km causeway across the lake that links the desert and Tozeur, and we took that road to see the lake. Huge!

Tozeur is an Oasis town with about 40,000 people. It’s well known for the palm groves, mountain oasis, and the Star Wars movie sites. I was curious about the mountain oasis, but it required driving up some mountain roads & that seemed a bit much for our men folks who were driving that day.

So we just walked around the medina, the old town center, which was filled with uniquely designed brick buildings.

We decided to try a fancy restaurant in this town. Le Minaret Ferkous offered a 3 course meal for 70 dinars – about $23.

Nicely decorated place and beautifully presented food, but we thought it was a bit over priced since we got the same level of satisfaction from $17 meals. I know: $17, $23 – not a real big difference there. But 50 and 70 dinars sound different, right?

Tozeur and Douz areas have several different Star Wars movie sets that people love to visit. For some reason, movie sets don’t motivate us to drive extra miles. May the force be with us even if we didn’t step onto the movie sets!

I almost chose Tozeur as the base for our Sahara excursion, but the longer drive of getting there from Tunis changed my mind. In hindsight, I think Douz was a better choice because of its proximity to the desert.

Itinerary link

May 2025

We stopped in El Jem (population: 21,000) on the way back to Tunis from the Sahara region. We found a good grill restaurant right across from the main entrance to the amphitheatre.

We didn’t find the town particularly charming in any way. But it has the biggest Roman amphitheatre outside of Italy. It used to hold 35,000 people, they say. Walking around the complex, I felt there were a lot of stories buried there.

So I asked Google what sort of stuff went on in these venues during Roman times.

Sorry I asked. No wonder I’ve never really been attracted to the amphitheatres.

I almost  chose Kairouan as the lunch stop instead of El Jem. That would have been a completely different experience since Kairouan is all about the mosques. But it’s a much bigger city (population: 200,000+) and going in and out would have taken much longer.

We could have done both if we were willing to add a couple more hours to the trip. We admit we are lazy (or laid back?) travelers who don’t have to see/do everything, though.

Itinerary link