Tunisia Guide
Things not to miss
1 Kairouan Great Mosque
• One of Islam's holiest sites – four trips here, so they say, are as good as a pilgrimage to Mecca.
2 El Jem's amphitheatre
• This huge arena where gladiators once slogged it out is much better preserved than Rome's Colosseum.
3 The forests of Aïn Draham
• Not the landscape you expected in Tunisia: fresh, Alpine, snowy in winter and planted with cork oak trees, whose bark is stripped periodically to make anything from bottle stoppers to floor tiles.
4 Kerkouane
• A town whose ancient private houses, each with a characteristic red-bottomed bathtub, are almost the only surviving remnant of a Carthaginian culture systematically destroyed by Rome.
5 Jerban mosques
• Built by a breakaway sect of Islam to double up as places of refuge in times of trouble, the fort-like mosques of Jerba attractively dot the island's interior.
6 Bulla Regia
• Subterranean villas and sumptuous mosaics at the country's most unusual Roman site.
7 Dougga
• The most extensive Roman site in Tunisia, featuring a restored theatre, a town brothel and an intriguing Libyco-Punic mausoleum.
8 Chenini
• Built around ancient hilltop forts, this troglodyte Berber village boasts whitewashed mosques, antique olive-oil presses and cave dwellings.
9 Bardo Museum
• The world's greatest collection of Roman mosaics, not to mention statues, frescoes and sarcophagi, all housed in a fabulous palace in Tunis.
10 Tabarka
• A fine beach resort dominated by its imposing Genoese castle.
11 Le Kef
• Great views and some fascinating monuments in this strategic old town, overlooked by a solid citadel.
12 Chott el Jerid
• A shallow seasonal salt lake, dry for ten months of the year, when it's a vast, flat expanse of salt crystals glittering in the sunlight and shimmering with mirages.
13 Nefta
• A beautiful old town of Sufi mosques and quaint alleyways, built around a palm-filled crater called the Corbeille.
14 Ksour
• These fortified structures were built by Berber tribes to store and defend their grain, and as a meeting place for the community; now mostly disused, they're strewn over the south of the country.
15 Carthage
• Once the great rival to imperial Rome and home to Hannibal and his elephants, Carthage today is a scattering of ancient sites amid beautiful country by the sea.
16 Sfax Medina
• The most unspoiled of all Tunisia's old walled cities, and an utterly fascinating place to wander amid feverish commercial activity.
17 Kerkennah Islands
• Odysseus, Hannibal and former President Habib Bourguiba all enjoyed exile on these laid-back, idyllic and very friendly islands, whose shallow waters make their beaches ideal for children.
18 Bizerte
• A strategic port and a pretty one, with two citadels, a Spanish fort and an Andalusian quarter.
19 Hammamet beach
• Tunisia's finest beach is a sweeping curve of soft yellow sand backed by lush green vegetation, making Hammamet justifiably the country's top seaside resort.
20 Mahdia
• Tunisia's most charming resort, whose old city, on its own little peninsula, is protected by a sixteenth-century gateway.
21 Sidi Bou Saïd
• A tumble of sleek whitewashed villas on a hillside overlooking the sea, this chic suburb of Tunis is a home from home to the arty, the elegant and the affluent of Tunisia and Europe alike.
22 Sbeïtla
• Capital for a year under the Byzantines, this well-preserved Roman site was once a major centre for Christianity in North Africa, as its impressive collection of ancient churches attests.
23 Matmata
• With its strange, crater-like pit-dwellings dug into the soft sandstone, the landscape here has often been compared to the moon's – but Matmata has lots more atmosphere.