Tunisian Travels – Day 1: A Day Trip to Carthage

On my first day in Tunisia, I visited Carthage. The highlight of my preparation for this trip was the night before when – at my hotel in Tunis – I revisited the Aeneid with its description of the city and Dido’s famous suicide scene. On a practical level, however, I had already done my logistical research several days earlier. The train to Carthage was supposed to run from the eastern end of central Tunis every half an hour, but recent reviews of the station said the train was out of order. Since I did not want to walk all the way to the station only to find out for myself, I decided to call a Bolt cab from my hotel and rode to Carthage directly.

This is not to say that I never intended to give Tunisia’s public transportation system a chance. On the contrary, when I arrived in Tunis the day before, I caught the bus to the centre rather than flagging a taxi. This cost me some effort, as the directions to the bus stop do not extend farther than the airport building despite the fact that the stop itself lies beyond the car park and on the side of the main road. I half suspect that the absence of signage simply takes advantage of the fact that Tunisians are generally quite friendly and freely offer directions to lost-looking foreigners. Once I sat down on the bus, I observed that women would quietly use their belongings to reserve seats next to themselves for other women, who – evidently without knowing them – would never miss a beat in following through.

I arrived at one of the southernmost sites in Carthage, Salammbo Tophet, an ancient Punic burial ground with a number of relatively well-preserved tombstones. I was the first visitor that day, and perhaps because the ticketing officer had not yet arrived, one of the other men on duty simply let me in, almost chasing me away from the ticket office as though it did not concern me at all. I later regretted having not bought my ticket there, as Carthage has a combined ticket to all sites and the officers at each of them make a note next to the name of their site with a different colour pen.

From Salammbo Tophet, I continued to the Punic Ports, a site that consists of some ruined pillars and foundations by the sea. More interesting than these remains is the geography of the area: the physical structures are on a piece of land that lies between the sea and manmade lagoons – one rectangular, the other crescent-shaped. These served to protect ships from the ravages of the sea, but as far as I know, they only date to the second century BCE and the older ports have not yet been located. Here too I was not asked for a ticket.

I was finally asked to buy a ticket at the Ancient Punic District of Dido, which in addition to pre-Roman and Roman foundations houses the foundations of a Vandal-era chapel. Just like the nearby Magon Quarter, it is mostly a collection of ruins, and I was done with my visit very soon, after which I climbed the hill to the so-called Archaeological Site of Carthage. Located behind the Cathedral of Saint Louis, which towers above the port, the area contains the ruins of a Roman-era settlement, as well as the tomb of Louis IX of France. This king spearheaded the seventh and eighth crusades to retake North Africa for Christianity, and he died of dysentery in Tunis. Still, Louis was revered as a just and pious king by the medieval Christian world, which led to his canonisation and subsequent glory as the namesake of several cities in the French Empire.

Removed by a short but not entirely pleasant walk along the road, the Roman Amphitheatre was another stop that I could not miss on my wanderings around Carthage. I made it there much earlier than I expected, as the Cathedral and the Museum of Carthage were closed, which would become a theme throughout my Tunisian travels. From there, I continued to the sprawling complex of aqueducts and cisterns of La Malga and the nearby Baths of Gargilius.

As I was approaching the aqueducts, a man shouted at me from the nearby guard post to ask if I had tickets. I shouted back that I did and continued taking my pictures. In a short while, however, the man hurried up to me and motioned me to keep walking along the path to the aqueducts, asking whether I would give him five dinars. I asked him what for, to which he simply responded, “for taking pictures and so on.” I might have given him the money, but he asked me with a hint of impatience whether I would give him the five dinars or not, which indicated that I had a choice, so I politely refused as I took him for a conman. As I learned in a few dozen metres later, the man probably really was a guard: the site – a sign said in front of the gate – was closed to visitors, which was something that the guard had forgotten to mention and which, had I known, would have made me more appreciative of the necessity to delicately bribe my way in.

My next stop was the Roman Theatre, a massive south-facing semicircular structure. Judging by all the lights and equipment set up around the building, the theatre had been repurposed for modern use, but there were not many other tourists at the time of my visit. In front of the theatre, I bumped into a taxi driver who had already tried to pick me up at the amphitheatre. Seeing me, he triumphantly exclaimed, “Monsieur, vous voyez, je suis là,” thinking, no doubt, that I must be regretting my choice of not catching a ride with him considering how much faster he must have gotten there. I did not feel regretful at all but I felt a tinge of sympathy seeing this elderly man in his large old-fashioned coat approach tourists and unsuccessfully urge them to take a ride with him. He was so politely persistent that I eventually relented and agreed to let him drive me to my remaining destinations.

With Munib behind the wheel, I zipped quickly between the Roman villas with their beautiful bird mosaics, the Baths of Antoninus (the second largest Roman baths after the ones in Rome), and the Paleo-Christian Museum. I cannot in good conscience recommend that site and to his credit, nor did Munib, who tried to persuade me against it but yielded when I said it was the last place on my combined ticket I had not visited. The tiny museum was closed and all I saw were a few mosaics stuck on the outside walls.

As my driver correctly guessed, I asked to be dropped off in the nearby quarter of Sidi Bou Said, a town known for its white and blue facades, which attract social media influencers like flies to carrion. The town was pleasant, and I sat down in a café to drink an overpriced orange juice, eat a brik, and take in the views before visiting the local Ennejma Ezzahra Palace and returning to Tunis.

Reasoning that the replacement bus would likely be near the train station whose train it was replacing, I made my way there, but to my surprise I found that the train station was open and operational. I did not wait long after buying my tickets, and I was soon seated beside two tall young men who had large eyes and foreheads that seemed to furrow over trifles and clear up the very next second; were they born in America, they would doubtlessly be playing teenage heartthrobs in some sitcom. After a while, the men asked me whether I was headed to the centre, and when I said I was, they told me I would have to switch trains as the tracks were broken. Before alighting at one of the earlier stations, they instructed me to leave the train Khereddine and then, unable to think of a way to describe what I should do, exhorted me to simply “suivez la foule” (follow the crowd).

Since I immediately forgot the name “Kheredinne,” I stayed on the train until the stop where everyone left the train and did as I was told. The crowd walked off the platform and crossed the tracks into the city, proceeding to walk along the road at a leisurely speed. To my utter amazement, I realised that we were not heading towards a replacement bus or a provisional train station. No, we were following a road running parallel to the train tracks all the way to the next station. There, at La Goulette Casino, we climbed the platform again and waited for the train to come from the centre of Tunis and reverse course.

I had one more thing to do once I returned to the city, namely, to inquire about tickets to El Jem. On my way to the station, I almost bumped into a man who proceeded to strike up a conversation with me and upon hearing where I was headed, took it upon himself to guide me. I suspected he might not be doing so for altruistic reasons, but I exhausted all the polite ways of getting rid of him and found myself trailing him through the streets until the train station. There, to his credit, he at least made inquiries on my behalf before asking me for money. Still, trusting locals was on balance a good decision for the day, as it got me to Sidi Bou Said and back to Tunis in very good time.