La Goulette, Tunis, Tunisia

December 7, 2024

What an incredible country!  Just disembarking from the ship in Tunisia was a marvelous adventure.  As we walked toward the pristine, beautiful port building, men greeted us, holding fennec foxes and Moroccan eagles.  We stopped to gawk at the beautiful creatures, then walked through the port building with neat little shops on each side, to our comfortable bus for the “Best of Tunisia” tour.

One thing was apparent — tourism is important for Tunisia. We felt like we were being given the red carpet and royal treatment.  One of the most visited countries in Africa, Tunisia brings in an average of $9.4 million per year through tourism.

Our first stop was the stunning National Bardo Museum, housed in the former Kheireddine Beylic Palace.  It is located in the suburbs of Le Bardo.  Stepping inside, we saw towering above us, stunning Roman mosaics, more of which are displayed throughout the museum.  In fact, this museum has the largest collection of mosaics in the world.

Massive collections include antiquities from Ancient Greece, Carthage, and the Islamic period, with objects ranging from pre-historic artifacts to Punic jewels.  There is an entire gallery of Roman sarcophaguses and Christian baptisteries.  Fascinating is the cargo from a Roman ship that wrecked off the coast of Cape Africa, with Hellenistic Greek master pieces of art.  The collection includes bronze treasures, furniture, and marble sculptures.  Captain Cousteau actually participated in the underwater excavations to recover these treasures.

There are 101 incredible masterpieces in the museum representing what UNESCO includes as part of the “world virtual pantheon of humanity,” great Tunisian sites, including the city of Carthage, the Ancient Doug, El Djem’s Coliseum, and the Arab Medinas of Kairouan, Tunis and Sousse.  The Bardo Museum includes items in the collections representative of each of these cities.  Representative art from all of the Tunisian regions in the past 40,000 years are included in the museum..  Words and photos cannot possibly give you an idea of how amazing this museum is.  I was absolutely astounded.  I could not get enough of this museum in the time we had. If you love museums like I do, put this one on your bucket list!

One sad piece of history is that on March 18, 2015, two militants attacked the museum and took hostages.  21 people were killed at the scene — mostly European tourists.  Some died later.  As you walk into the foyer of the museum, you see a lovely tribute to those who died.

The tour took us next to Old Town (the Medina), for a carpet weaving demonstration. The Medina historic quarters are a maze of over 700 monuments and buildings dating between the 12th and 16th centuries. 

After being directed to a particular shop, we watched a woman weaving and were fascinated by the intricacy of her work.  Then we were taken up rickety stairs into a room lined with narrow backless benches, and completely surrounded by silk rugs and camel hair rugs.  I asked the price of one gorgeous blue silk rug — $10,000!  We endured the high pressure sales and itchy noses while we were served cookies and hot tea, before we trudged back downstairs to shop for mosaics and gorgeous handprinted pottery.  Again, sales were high pressure, but I was pleased with the significantly reduced price I was offered for a large handprinted plate after I walked away.  Joan purchased a beautiful mosaic. We were given a short amount of time to shop in the Mderesa Slimania, before walking back through the Medina and the monument square, to the bus.

Next, we visited the Punic and Roman ruins at ancient Carthage, the center of Phoenician civilization, founded by Queen Dido.  There is almost nothing left of Carthage, because what was left has been scattered around the more modern construction, and Roman ruins.  We visited the Sanctuary of Tophet, from the Punic period of Carthage, where a vast number of children had been buried.

Then we walked around the ruins of the Antonine Roman baths, so beautiful with its views of the sea and the mountains in the distance.  The baths were impressively enormous.  In its heyday, the baths indoor and outdoor pools, one of which was the size of an Olympic pool.

As we left the Roman baths, we stopped briefly by the five story amphitheater where Christians had been sacrificed.

During our tour, we were taken to a local restaurant for lunch.  We were served a salad of cucumber, tomato and red onion, accompanied by two savory pastries.  Then placed in front of each of us, our eyes popping at the size of the portions, was a big bowl of saffron colored, very fine couscous topped with a chicken quarter and pickled vegetables.  Dessert was a huge shared tray filled with peeled and sliced citrus fruit and apples, and succulent whole dates, served with hot mint tea in glass cups.

Our next stop was the North African American Cemetery and Memorial in Carthage, which is the final resting place for over 2,800 American soldiers who died in World War II.  The 27 acres includes the Walls of the Missing soldiers, which lists 3,725 names.  Cliff disembarked from the bus with other passengers in the cold, windy weather to enter where a sculptural figure holds a laurel wreath for the fallen, to view the vast number of graves, the chapel, and the four fountains.  He said that it was quite the emotional experience.  The cemetery is located among the ruins of Ancient Carthage.

Our final stop was the lovely little village of Sidi Bou Said, with its Moorish architecture and white houses with blue shutters and elaborate blue wrought iron over the windows.  Our guide said that he would show us where we should shop and how to determine which crafts are genuine and which are cheap knockoffs.  The shop where he took us had the same crafts as the first one we visited. I turned around, and there were the same salesmen as well — they had arrived ahead of us while we lunched. We skedaddled out of there to walk around the lovely village.

During our ride back to the ship, we saw in the distance flocks of pink flamingos feeding in the massive series of salt lakes that lie south of the Atlas Mountains in the distance.  It was stunning.

Around this area is when we started seeing the expansive amounts of litter and plastic waste everywhere, especially in poorer areas and along the lakes.  Apparently, litter is a huge problem along the seaside as well.  I researched the litter issue and discovered that the government is trying to join forces with local waste collectors to clean up the country.  The countryside is apparently covered in garbage.  It reminded me of America in the 1960s, when people just threw trash out of their windows.  People don’t think anything of it in Tunisia (just like Americans used to be in the 60s) — they just dump their trash wherever.  As might be expected, there is apparently a lack of budget, and a shortage of garbage trucks and manpower, as well as corrupt officials.

This information brought me to researching the government.  Tunisia is a Republic with a semi-presidential system.  The President is head of the state, and the prime minister is head of the government, with a unicameral legislative structure.  This means they have one legislative body with one house instead of two.  The Tunisian court system is heavily influenced by French civil law.

From 1956 to 2011, Tunisia was ruled by a defacto one party state with politics dominated by the Constitutional Democratic Party.  In 2011, a national uprising ousted Ben Ali and dismantled the Democratic Constitutional Assembly.  This paved the way for a multi-party democracy.  In October 2014, Tunisia had its first parliamentary elections since the revolution.

Tunis had “Hybrid regime,” with Kais Saied as president (landslide victory in October 2019).  He had a reputation as incorruptible.  However, on July 25, 2021, he suspended Parliament, fired the prime minister, and consolidated power.  His opponents called it a “coup.”  On October 6, 2024, not that long before we visited, Saied was re-elected for a second term with a 90% majority vote.

Tunisia is a member of the Arab League, African Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.  The country has close relations with the United State, France and the European Nation.

It had been so windy when our ship arrived in Tunisia, that the crew had used all of the lines and both anchors.  By the time that we returned to the ship, the skies had turned blue, with clouds spreading out in a fan toward our ship.   For The Volendam to exit the port, it had to proceed for a mile in the other direction to turn around, because the channel is so narrow.

We were impressed with the beauty of Tunisia, but even more so, the ancient history and the different civilizations through the centuries who made this lovely and strategically located spot in North Africa their home.