La Goulette, Tunisia
October 24, 2022
We arrived in the port city of La Goulette at 8 am and boarded busses for our tour at 815 am. Tunisia was occupied by the French until 1957 and has 2 languages it uses. Arabic and French although English is now taught in school
This was a HAL tour and we chose it because we were unable to find any others tours by other tour companies that could work within the time frame we had.
Our first stop was the capital city of Tunis. Here we planned to visit some government buildings and then the Medina or ”old city”. Our guide, Hada, was very proud of Tunisia and its treatment of women. This must be a comparison to other Arabic Countries and their treatment of women. More women then men in Tunisia. More women in power than men in Tunisia.
Most of the photos above are from Kasbah Square. City Hall and other government buildings. We walked from the Kasbah to the Medina. This are has structures that were built using the remains of the Roman ruins located near Carthage.
A bit further and we arrived at the bazaar. A labyrinth of shopping stalls selling everything you can imagine. There were sections that just sold jewelry, others that sold spices or oils. It reminded us of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. This was much more confusing and Hada was insistent that we stay together at it is easy to get lost. The bazaar appears to weave around for miles.
We would have enjoyed strolling through here on our own and haggling with merchants for junk. It was time to head Carthage for lunch. About a 30 minute drive put us into a restaurant that felt more like a bingo hall with 5 bus loads of passengers. We sat at long tables and conversed with other folks as we enjoyed the food. We decided to enjoy the local beer and wine. Not bad.
Lots of French influence still remains here. After lunch we went to see the ruins of a roman bath. There is a lot yet to be uncovered. Many of the ruins were pilfered to use in the construction projects in Tunis. This are was first constructed in 100 BC. It was destroyed by the Romans and then rebuilt over the existing ruins in 200 AD.
You have to imagine the pools of water across the large open area. There were chambers that have different temperatures of water. The bath was an important architectural and social site. I imagine this aqueduct fed the area with water.
We finished the tour with a visit to Sidi Boussaid. White houses with blue doorways. Reminded us of an island in Greece.
We did walk through the market in this town and looked through the stuff we really didn’t need. Vendors were out in the street hawking their merchandise. Belts, watches, necklaces. One shop owner yelled to me ”I sell drugs here”. Clearly I’m not, nor ever have been a drug user but I had to check this out. He laughed and said I was the first customer to come into his shop all day. He obviously now has a line to use to attract customers. We gave him the full nelson on some argan oil that was right from Morocco.
We finished the day watching a movie. Too tired to see the evening entertainment.…