The road south from Tunis to Sousse is unexpectedly lush.
Lining the route, telegraph poles stand like accidental conservation projects, each crowned with an oversized stork’s nest. They look like ambitious DIY tree houses built on stilts.
In local culture, storks are the gold standard of faithfulness and reliability. They remain faithful to a single partner for life and reliably return to the same nest each year. Tunisian wives greatly admire them, decreeing, “May all our husbands be storks,” according to our guide Imed.
I can’t claim such a degree of reliability myself, but I am excited to be back in Tunisia for the first time in 30 years. From sun-tinged recollections of my first family holiday abroad, I have vague recollections of the feral cats that ruled the medina with unchallenged authority, the hypnotic sunset call to prayer in Sousse, and the awe-inspiring amphitheatre at El Jem, which astonished my 10-year-old history-geek self.
Tunisia’s Living History: The Eras Tour
Early in our trip, Imed muses that “traveling through a country is traveling through eras of history.” In Tunisia’s case, there are quite a few eras to get through.
From Roman amphitheatres to Ottoman palaces, Islamic medinas to crumbling French colonnades, the country wears its past like layers of a well-worn blanket, stitched together but still distinct. For a place modest in size – only marginally bigger than Wisconsin – it packs an impressively heavyweight history, which reads like a very lively guest list. The Phoenicians are documented as arriving first with their trading ships. The Romans followed, leaving planned cities and aqueducts in their wake, followed by the Arabs who brought Islam and poetry. In later centuries, the land became part of the Ottoman Empire, whose rulers added grand palaces, and the French, who left behind wide boulevards, patisserie, and a flair for bureaucracy. Tunisia became independent in 1956. All of these eras meshed with indigenous Berber communities to give modern Tunisia enough stories, ruins, and recipes to keep the average traveler happily immersed for weeks.
Tunisian tourism infrastructure is well-established, particularly amongst European visitors, but the last decade has been difficult. Terrorist attacks in Tunis and Mousse in 2015 decimated the industry. Recovery was slow, but Tunisia’s tourism scene has rebounded impressively in recent years. Over 10 million visitors made the journey in 2024. They are drawn by a beguiling mix of sun, sand (both beach-lounging and desert-roaming variety), and a culture that greets strangers like long-lost cousins.
It’s a country that never seems to sit still.
‘Six Languages in Six Seconds’
In the medina, women in bright hijabs slice through the crowds, throwing out a sharp “Excusez-moi!” as they barrel past dawdling tourists.
Stallholders, meanwhile, have mastered the “six languages in six seconds” trick to lure you into their shop. They have quips tailored to every nationality. Americans are accosted with the recently-invited offer of “no tariffs here, my friend.” Offers for British visitors alternate between the newly-invented “Brexit price” and the evergreen “cheap as chips mate.” Even though I should know better, I still fall for the sales patter now. I emerge from one dimly-lit store with a ceramics set in the shape of the Hand of Fatima, a local good luck symbol.
Forgotten and Re-Discovered History
Tunis also remains refreshingly unpolished. The medina hums with echoes of trade, prayer (and cats) as it has done for centuries. Buildings are gently crumbling, signposts are non-existent, and you are just as likely to stumble upon a former Ottoman Palace as a dead end or a carpet shop. Rue de la Pacha snakes towards the medina with arched doorways bearing the weight of centuries. These have been spruced up, painted in bright shades of blue and yellow, and studded with icons offering prosperity and long life to the householder. Some are open to bakeries offering delectable tartes noisettes for a price that – genuinely – is as cheap as chips and demands a stop.
In a failed attempt to exit the medina, we follow what we think is an exit and stumble upon the royal mausoleum, Tourbet el Bey. Despite its central location and a masterpiece of Ottoman-Italian design, it lay abandoned for some fifty years after independence and only re-opened to the public in 2023. Inside, polished marble gleams underfoot and intricate Arabic calligraphy curls across the walls, tracing five centuries of royal ambition, intrigue, and rivalries. It feels like a fitting metaphor for Tunisia itself: a place where history is never truly lost but may gather a significant amount of dust while waiting for the next chapter of rediscovery.
Driven to Distraction
Every guidebook warns against even thinking about driving in Tunisia. They’re not wrong. It’s very much a combat sport, which balances cheeky audacity and outright disregard for the laws of both physics and good manners. Road signs appear to function more as well-meaning suggestions.
Imed has developed a coping mechanism for this chaos, punctuating each near miss with a polite “Blimey!” for our benefit. This is inevitably followed by a passionate stream of Arabic that—judging by the hand gestures alone—suggests he is slightly more aggrieved.
His hospitality to his passengers is considerably more gracious as he introduces us to Tunisia’s famous sweet tooth. After hearing our rave reviews on the fresh tarts on offer across Tunis, he detours to buy a box of makroud: diamond-shaped semolina pastries filled with fig paste and soaked in enough honey to keep a small bee colony in business. “Your number one souvenir from Tunisia!” he beams.
That perhaps would have been true had the presentation of the box not swiftly been followed by a violent swerve to avoid a truck straddling three lanes of traffic. The box’s contents and more colourful Arabic insults are sent flying.
Reliving Ancient Grandeur
Two hours south, I discovered that my recollection of El Jem’s amphitheatre is surprisingly accurate, and its 1,800-year-old structure is aging considerably better than the rest of us.
Its sheer scale remains staggering. It is an ancient architectural flex that outmatches anything of its kind, with soaring arches that perfectly frame the afternoon sky. As seen in Monty Python’s Life of Brian and a more recent Nike advert, its scale defies belief when considering its age. It inspires just as much awe in me as it did three decades ago.
Originally, the whole place was clad in gleaming white marble, and the arena’s seating was strategically positioned four meters above the action. Clearly an early attempt at PR damage control to avoid “Lions Snack on Spectators” headlines.
These days, however, the only felines prowling the ruins are the ever-present feral cats. They stalk the upper levels like haughty emperors, breaking their death-stare at tourists only to fight or engage in a decidedly ungladatorial mating ritual.
And Finally, Sousse
We reach Sousse as dusk falls. The medina is alive with early evening energy, as shops clatter shut and all-male debates persist in cafés, punctuated by theatrical gestures and sighs.
From the Great Mosque’s minaret, the first call to prayer soars across the sunset. Other mosques join in one by one, their voices weaving through crumbling walls and spilling out towards the sea. Beneath the mosque’s crenulated ramparts, worshippers flow toward the entrance: some brisk and focused, others strolling in conversation. A few sheepish latecomers, resembling naughty schoolboys, slip in at the last moment.
This ritual seems an apt metaphor for Tunisia as a whole. Whether it’s the storks tending their roadside nests, the eternal bustle of locals hurrying through the medina, or the flow of attendees towards the mosque, it continues to be a country that moves forward while never forgetting where it started. If the storks can manage to return each year with clockwork precision, perhaps I can follow their lead and return more than once every three decades.
If You Go
Arrival: There are no direct flights from the U.S. to Tunisia. However, multiple transatlantic airlines offer connections to Tunis-Carthage airport. These include Air France (via Paris), Lufthansa (via Frankfurt and Munich), and Turkish Airlines (via Istanbul).
If you are already in Europe, you have far more flexibility, including low-cost Nouvel Air (from London, Berlin, and Milan). TunisAir also operates from more than 20 European destinations. Flight time is about three hours from London and two and a half hours from Paris.
For those in southern Europe, ferries from Marseilles and Genoa both sail to Tunis every two or three days in summer and less frequently in winter. Find a good overview of options, prices, and times here.
Between Tunis and Sousse: Six daily trains connect Tunis and Sousse on the Sahel Metro, taking 2 hours and 10 minutes. An onward connection between Sousse and El Jem runs three times daily. The Man In Seat 61 is the authority for all things train travel. Details here.
A private tour can also take you between the two locations, with stops in El Jem and the 7th-century mosque in Kerouan. Viator offers several good options, including one-way drop-offs.
Phil Thomas publishes his travel writing at Someone Else’s Country.
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