A Land of Beautiful Ruins

Tunisia is one of those true “off the beaten path” places. Unlike El Nido in the Philippines which attracts backpackers because it’s supposedly “off the beaten path”, Tunisia actually is. Most of the tourists that visit Tunisia seem to be resort-goers like those in the Dominican Republic; preferring the beaches and bus tours than exploring town on their owns.

After a gunman shot up a beach in 2015, there has been a lack of tourists in Tunisia and, naturally, an accompanying lack of online tourism information. That terror attack stopped European airlines from flying to Tunisia for a while and left a lasting impression that the country isn’t safe. This made our research troublesome because most information was severely outdated or nonexistent.

The tourism economy is slowly picking up and Europeans are returning to the country’s resorts. There are a few souvenir shops that cater to tourists, but we only ever saw a handful of tourists at each historic attraction. This makes it a great time to visit — before hoards of tourists rediscover and destroy the authenticity of the place.

We spent six days in a city called Sousse and another five in Tunis, the capital. On the way back from Sousse we ended up squatting on the floor of an overcrowded train, beside an old food counter that became a bench for the other unfortunate riders who couldn’t get a seat. It was in that moment where I decided it might be good to write a backpacking guide to Tunisia based on what we experienced. Hopefully this post on Sousse (and the next on Tunis) serves as that — and provides some useful information.

Tunis to Sousse via train

We flew in and out of Tunis-Carthage airport. The flight was the most expensive part of our trip. We took Bus #635 into town, which dropped us off at the end of Ava Habib Bourguiba, the main street in Tunis. We think the conductor messed up our change because we paid 0.95 Dinar for 2, which is an odd number; the fare should have been either 0.45 or 0.5 Dinar each. Once off the bus, we walked to the Gare de Tunis station to catch the train to Sousse. There are only 5 trains per day and they aren’t spaced very regularly. Getting out of the airport and finding a bus took longer than expected, so we missed the 3:35PM train and had to wait until the 6PM train. The long-distance trains are known to be notoriously late, and we confirmed this. Although we left on-time, we arrived an hour and a half late. It cost 13.600 Dinar each for a round-trip ticket; the return ticket is valid for any time in the next 10 days. The round-trip ticket is 15% cheaper than two single-trip tickets. The train schedule is on this official website: http://www.sncft.com.tn/En/

Alternatively, it’s possible to get a Louage (a minibus/car shared taxi) from station Louage Moncef Bey, which is southeast of Gare de Tunis. From what we understand, you buy your ticket in an office and then ask around to find the correct minivan to get onto. This blog has good information on Louages. It cost 10 Dinar per person in 2010, so the fare has probably gone up by now. We chose to take the train because we didn’t want to get motion-sick, but the Louage would have gotten us to Sousse more quickly.

Sousse in a Day

We stayed just a few blocks from the Medina, the old city surrounded by walls, at an AirBnB that included free dinners. The location was ideal and we were able to walk everywhere. We considered AirBnBs located closer to the beach, but the Medina isn’t too far of a walk anyway. In one day we were able to cover the Medina, Ribat (Islamic defensive structure), and Sousse Archeology Museum without feeling rushed. On the second day we visited the Monastir Ribat and on the third we went to Port Kantaoui beach.

The best way to see the Medina is to just wander around until you get lost. The streets are irregular and not laid out in block pattern; you’ll find yourself taking many turns. There are a lot of white walls and elegant doors, mostly in blue. There are also plenty of market stalls. The “centre” of the old city is just east of the Ribat, where there are two good food stalls across from a large souvenir shop. The Charawna m’laoui (lamb wrap) is 3.8 Dinar and chicken version is 3.5 Dinar. This became a staple lunch for us, as it was cheap and tasted quite good.

The Sousse Ribat is a pretty cool structure, but there isn’t a lot to see in it. It’s mostly empty rooms with odd pieces of sculptured marble. From the top of the tower there’s a panoramic view of the city that might be nice at sunset, but during the day we didn’t find it to be particular noteworthy. The entrance fee is 7.0 Dinar per person, plus 1.0 Dinar to bring in cameras. Most tourist attractions have a 1.0 Dinar fee for cameras and we paid the fee during the first half of our trip, but stopped getting asked to pay in our second half even though we had an A6000 camera slung visibly over my shoulder.

Sousse Archeological Museum

It’s a bit odd that the Sousse Archeological Museum is located at the top of the Medina hill, but that the museum’s collection was all in the basement. This museum was the first of three we visited in Tunisia, all of which included detailed tile mosaics. The Sousse museum mosaics mostly depict fishing scenes. There are also terra cotta tiles, candle holders, urns, and epitaphs. All of the Roman ruins in Tunisia (including those in the museum) are in remarkable condition because the weather is so dry and there isn’t a lot of acid rain or pollution.

The entrance fee to the museum was 8 Dinar plus 1 Dinar for the camera. We spent about an hour in it.

A daytrip to El Jem

El Jem is 70km south of Sousse and is well known for having the second largest coliseum in the world after the one in Rome. We opted to take the train, which cost 8.5 Dinar each way for a second class seat. On our outbound trip we forgot to ask for a second class ticket and paid extra for first class; we rectified that on the way back. Unsurprisingly, the train arrived in El Jem an hour late and back to Sousse half an hour late.

El Jem is well worth the day trip out, as the amphitheatre is quite impressive. It’s much smaller than the one in Rome but the scale is still enormous and it is in better condition than the one in Rome. Additionally, since we were visiting in October, there were barely any other people so it was easy to get good photos. Over the two hours we wandered the site, we probably saw around 20 other people.

We’re told that the “high season” is during the summer, which is also the hottest time of the year. October temperatures are still in the high 20s, so we think it’s a better time to visit.

Another benefit to the amphitheatre in El Jem is that there aren’t any places marked as off-limits. We were able to go from the top to the lowest level below the pits, as well as everywhere in between!

We purchased a combined ticket for the amphitheatre and the El Jem museum for 10 Dinar. The museum houses many tile mosaics and features a recreated Roman villa (with mosaics large enough to fill entire rooms) and a yard of Ottoman ruins. The Sousse museum is good for viewing fishing mosaics, but the El Jem museum is better for seeing animals, gods, and large geometric patterns.

A daytrip to the Monastir Ribat

The southeast corner of the Sousse Medina is the light rail station Sousse Bab Jdid. This is the start of a line that connects Sousse to Monastir; trains run every half hour. The fare is 1 Dinar and the trip takes about half an hour.

The Monastir Ribat doesn’t look like much from the outside but is pretty spectacular inside. The Monastir has been used in many films and is the main draw for the town. For just 7 Dinar, we had the place mostly to ourselves.

It’s hard to tell how big the Ribat is from the outside, but once we were inside we discovered rooms and passages everywhere.

At the top of the tower is an excellent view of the city, as well as the beach. Since the Ribat is located on the coast there’s a much more interesting view here than there was in the Sousse Ribat. We took a long break up here and would have stayed longer, but some other tourists arrived and we had to vacate quickly due to the small space.

For the remainder of the afternoon, we walked to the nearby beach. There’s a bit of garbage around but that doesn’t seem to bother the tourists from the hotel across the street, who were all huddled in a tiny exclusive corner filled with beach chairs and umbrellas. We didn’t swim, but lots of locals were cooling off in the water near the rock formation.

Kantaoui Beach

The last daytrip we took from Sousse was a venture up the coast to Port Kantaoui. This town consists of a long stretch of beach and is where most tourist come to spend their holiday at resorts. It took us a while to get there since we were told to take a louage but then found out they weren’t running that day. We had to take a white city bus (#18) for 0.660 Dinar instead. We went to the quieter north end of the beach, away from the resorts. It wasn’t the cleanest beach and there was seaweed everywhere, but the sand was nice and even in October it was somewhat warm enough to swim. On the way back we didn’t know where to take the bus, but and after we asked around we found a gentleman also headed to Sousse. He helped us get a louage, which cost 1.5 Dinar each.

The two main languages in Tunisia are Arabic and French. Since one of us spoke French we were pretty comfortable buying food and getting around. Asking for directions was by far the easiest way to get to places, as there always seemed to be someone willing to help us foreigners navigate the train, louage, or bus system. Tunisians were incredibly kind and sometimes went out of their way to help us. In fact, sometimes it seemed like the Tunisians were hyper aware of keeping us safe; for example, some girls on the Tunis metro told us to watch out for phone thieves; others told us to stay safe by grabbing onto a handle near them.