The Bardo.Museum, the Medina, Carthage and Sidi bou Said

Some of the exquisite mosaics and sculptures.

A very ornate baptistery.

The 'small palace'.

The 7 days of the week (inner circle) and the 12 signs of the zodiac (outer circle).

This doesn't show how crowded it really was.

One of the craftsmen, this one working bronze.

The square at the end of the Medina.

Have you ever seen a happier face?

The ruins of Carthage.

The remains of the baths.

The beautiful blue and white town of Sidi bou Said.

The pleasure craft harbour below the town.

Thursday, October 15th.

Our first stop today was at the magnificent Bardo Museum, housed in what used to be an Ottoman palace. This museum houses the most, and some of the best Roman and Byzantine mosaics in the world. The walls are covered as is the floor which we walked on. There were also sculptures and some art works from the era depicting mythological scenes, daily life, and zodiacal symbols. I have been to many museums on my tours, but this is one were I could have easily spent more time. There was a terrorist attack here in the Bardo Museum on March 18, 2015 by two Tunisian men with guns who killed 22 tourists before they were killed by security forces, which seriously impacted the country’s tourism business for years. After that we walked through the old city of Tunis, to the UNESCO-protected Medina, a labyrinthine quarter preserving medieval Arab life among monuments spanning a thousand years. The Great Mosque, Jemaa Zitouna, is the medina's spiritual centre, while Koranic schools, (we visited one), are found along the narrow lanes as well as traditional hammams, and Ottoman palaces. People have lived here for thousands of years, but today most people have moved out to have better utilities and a place to park their car. Replacing them are hundreds of shop keepers who have morphed over time from commodities and food stuffs to tourist souvenirs. Today the Medina was very crowded as a large cruise ship was in town. After fighting our way through we went to a street in the newer part of the city for lunch. I was with Norm who was looking for ice cream. Everyone else went off in groups for pizza or other foods. When we asked Makran where we could find ice cream, he asked 'is that all you want for lunch' and Norm answered 'do you need anything else?' He found us a place that served many flavours so we placed our order with a man who sat us at an outside roadside table while they prepared it. It was amazing and delicious. Norm was in heaven. I said 'looks like you are almost finished' and he said 'not until I wear off the glaze from the bowl'… then he said 'I envies dogs for their tongues…' I think the picture says it all. After lunch we drove out into the country to visit Carthage the ancient pre-Roman city of the Punics. This was a very important city in Mediterranean trade and when the Romans came to dominate southern Europe it wasn’t long until they set out through Sicily to conquer North Africa. It took them three years of battles and siege to defeat the Punics. The city has been mostly demolished by the Romans, the local people who looted building materials and weather over the millennia. We visited an abandoned French cathedral there and the huge Roman bath complex by the sea and saw the remnants of the aqueducts, with which the water was brought to the city from over 100 kms away. Then we drove to the village of Sidi Bou Said. This is an artists' village of distinctive Tunisian architecture requiring traditional colour schemes, white and blue. We wandered around there for an hour before convening at a local restaurant where we had  a sea bream fish dinner on the open third floor. Then it was time to return to our hotel for the night.