Welcome to Best Adventures

August 2008
Tunisia: a North African Odyssey

Travel to Tunisia and you'll discover why it's a hugely popular destination, with wonderful white beaches, excellent cuisine, forests, salt lakes, incredible desert scenery, bizarre desert architecture, beautifully preserved Roman ruins and much more.

Without doubt the ancient city of Carthage, once the third largest city of the Roman Empire, is the jewel in Tunisia's crown. Founded by the Phoenicians in 814BC, Carthage was the main rival to Rome for power in the Mediterranean. Having been razed on more than one occasion, "Delenda est Carthago" ("Carthage must be destroyed" - Cato the Elder, 3rd Century BC), Carthage these days is now a World Heritage site and a must-see on any trip to North Africa. However, there are plenty of other archeological sites in Tunisia that will certainly satisfy your inner "Indiana Jones." These include the underground Roman villas of Bulla Reggia, with their resplendant mosaics and Dougga, the incredible Roman Administrative capital, which was sacked by the Vandals and boasts a dramatic setting in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.

The southern part of Tunisia is mostly Saharan arid desert, with magnificent rocky escarpments with oases thick with date palms, salt lakes and intriguing sights such as the cave dwellings of Matmata (where the Star Wars was filmed). Tunisia is also home to Kairouan, the fourth holiest site in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and it is said that seven pilgrimages to Kairouan equates to one pilgrimage to Mecca.

You'll find the capital, Tunis, is a delightful mix of Arab and French architecture, with a walkable city centre and a World Heritage 7th Century old town of narrow streets and nail-studded doors and an interesting souk, along with a pretty French zone. However, most tourists come to Tunisia for its glorious light and excellent beaches: Hammamet is the country's biggest tourist destination and is literally taken over in the peak periods by European tourists but it is Djerba Island that captures the essence of coastal Tunisia. Labelled by travellers the 'Isle of Forgetfulness', an almost magical combination of a blue sky, shining white houses and narrow alleyways casts its spell on the unsuspecting visitor. Legend even has it that Ulysses almost lost all his men when the beautiful maidens of the island fed them the lotus flower and they all refused to return to their ships!