5 Days in Sousse

A ribat was a fortified religious post where men took turns at prayer and at watching the sea, and the Ribat of Sousse is the best-preserved in Tunisia. Scholars still argue about the dates, but a marble plaque over the door of the round tower names the emir Ziyadat Allah I and the year 821, and it is the oldest Islamic monumental inscription in the country. The soil under it suggests an older fort, probably from the 8th century. A chain of ribats ran along the coast and passed signals from one to the next, which is why the tower matters.

Come first thing, before the tour groups. Walk the arcaded courtyard and look into the narrow vaulted cells, then climb the tower. The view over the medina and the sea is the best in Sousse, and from up here you can pick out the Great Mosque next door, which borrowed its fortress look from the ribat.

A few steps from the ribat is the Great Mosque of Sousse, commissioned in 851 by the Aghlabid emir Abu al-Abbas Muhammad I. It looks more like a fortress than a mosque: crenellated walls, round corner towers and no minaret at all. The call to prayer was given from a domed pavilion at the northeast corner, a small kiosk added in the 11th century.

It is a plain, calm place. Inside the courtyard a Kufic inscription runs along the top of the walls, and the prayer hall has 13 naves of horseshoe arches under stone vaults instead of the flat wooden ceilings you'd see elsewhere. The floor of the prayer hall is covered with reed mats rather than carpets, which adds to the austere feel. You need to be properly dressed, and robes are available at the door if you aren't.

The Dar Essid is the house of an aristocratic Sousse family turned museum, and it shows daily life in the city in the 18th and 19th centuries. You walk through a central courtyard into bedrooms for the first and second wives, then the children's rooms, with furniture, curtains and clocks left as they were. The family tower was used to watch the sky for the new moon that starts Ramadan, and the café on top is one of the best places in the medina for a mint tea with a view.

It's small and a little eccentric, and that's the point. Go after the mosque, take your time in the courtyard, and climb up for the view of the ribat tower from above.

Lunch in the medina is the cheapest and most local meal of the day. Look for a plain place with a handful of tables and a tablecloth, where the menu is a short list of couscous with lamb, with fish, or with vegetables. A plate of couscous usually comes with a salad to start, bread and harissa on the side, and sometimes tea at the end.

Prices are posted and low: a couscous lunch in the medina has been quoted at around 10 TND a head. Ask for the harissa separately and add it a little at a time.

The souks fill the center of the medina. Expect to haggle for everything: merchants quote outrageous opening prices and speak a bit of every European language, and there is a lot of counterfeit designer goods among the real crafts.

A trick that works: first visit the fixed-price Soula Centre just outside the souk, to see what an item costs, then go back in. Start well below the first price, smile, and be ready to walk away. If you're only looking, say so at the start. A polite non, merci ends most conversations.

Most visitors come for the mosaics, and they are the reason this is one of the best museums in the country. The collection is the second largest in Tunisia after the Bardo in Tunis. It sits in the Kasbah, the fortress at the southwest corner of the medina, which dates from the 11th century. The museum opened here in 1951 and reopened in 2012 after a refit.

Look for the Head of Medusa, the face of Oceanus, Neptune in his sea chariot and a Nilotic landscape, then the Punic stelae and urns from the sanctuary of Baal Hammon, found in the Tophet of Sousse. The Christian tablets, including the Good Shepherd, come from the Roman catacombs under the city, a vast underground necropolis that was listed as closed for reconstruction on last check. Allow time for the garden at the top, which looks over the medina and the port.

Finish on the western side, where the medina rises on higher ground and you can see the sea over the roofs. The walls and the old gate, Bab el Gharbi, are close, and signboards mark out a cultural walk through the residential lanes where most of the houses are still lived in.

The streets stay busy until late, and street crime against visitors is reported to be low. Have a mint tea in a café, then walk back through the main streets rather than the empty ones.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan, also called the Mosque of Uqba, was founded in 670 by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi when he founded the city itself, and it is among the oldest places of worship in the Islamic world. It was destroyed around 690 during a Berber uprising, rebuilt in 703, and rebuilt again and again. What you see mostly dates from the Aghlabids in the 9th century, and the square minaret, 31.5 m high, became the model for minarets across the western Islamic world.

Non-Muslims can enter the big marble courtyard and look into the prayer hall from the doors, but not walk in. The courtyard portico stands on columns of marble, granite and porphyry reused from Roman, early Christian and Byzantine buildings. Come early, when the courtyard is empty.

A short walk through the medina is a small mosque founded in 866 with a façade that's a good example of early Islamic architecture. Three arched doorways are topped with three bands of Kufic inscription, interspersed with floral and geometric carving, and the first band quotes verses from the Quran. The small minaret was added later under the Hafsids.

You mainly look at it from the street, and that takes a few minutes, but the walk to it is half the point. Kairouan's medina is also where the carpet shops are: one old governor's house, signposted as Tapis-Sabra, is now a carpet shop covered in carpets from floor to ceiling.

Kairouan's most famous product is makroudh, a diamond of semolina dough filled with date paste and soaked in syrup. The oldest known recipe, a date-filled fried dough, is from a 13th-century Arabic cookbook. In Kairouan, the shops near the main pedestrian street let you watch the pastry cooks working most weekday mornings.

Buy a few warm ones, eat them on the spot, and take more for the road: they keep for weeks. For a proper lunch, find a place in the medina serving lablabi, the chickpea soup, or a grilled lamb plate, and finish with mint tea.

Bir Barouta is a well in the medina, described by guides as a 17th-century well where a camel walks in a circle to draw the water. It is the sort of stop that exists for visitors, and it knows it, but it is also a reminder of the whole point of the city's water story: Kairouan has no river, and everything you've seen today depended on how it stored and drew its water.

It takes ten minutes, and entry was listed as free on an older Wikivoyage entry.

The zawiya (a shrine complex) of Sidi Sahib, also called the Mosque of the Barber, is one of the most important religious sites in Kairouan. Tradition says Abu Zama'a al-Balawi, a companion of the Prophet, was buried here in 654 with three hairs from his beard, and he is the city's patron saint. The "barber" in the name comes from that story.

What you see mostly dates from the 17th century, when the Bey of Tunis rebuilt it. Look for the painted Qallalin tiles in blue, green and ochre, the carved stucco, the marble columns and the small madrasa courtyards. It is still a working shrine, not a museum, so keep your voice down.

Kairouan sits in a dry steppe, with no river. To water the city, the Aghlabid emir Abu Ibrahim Ahmad (856-863) had two huge circular reservoirs built just outside the walls, to the north. The Aghlabid Basins worked as settling tanks, and the water came in from the plains and from springs in the mountains by canals and an aqueduct. In the middle of the larger one you can still see a pillar that may have held a pleasure pavilion.

They're a quiet end to the day and a good example of why Kairouan survived at all. Restoration work on the complex was reported in June 2026, so some parts may be closed. It is a 20-minute walk from the medina's Tunis Gate, or a short taxi ride.

Boujaafar is the city beach, a sandy strip a short walk north of the medina and the port, with the corniche running behind it. The water is the Gulf of Hammamet, clear and turquoise, and the swimming season is long.

Come in the morning, when it's quieter. The sea is around 22 C in June, 25-26 C from July to September, and 24 C in October. In November it's about 21 C, fine for a quick swim on a sunny day. From January to April it's 15-16 C, so bring a jacket and walk the corniche instead.

Between Sousse and Port El Kantaoui, hotels line the shore for about 10 km. This is the package-holiday Sousse of British, German, Russian and Eastern European visitors, and it has had a hard decade. The strip's worst day was 26 June 2015, when a gunman attacked sunbathers on a beach near two hotels and killed 38 people, mostly British. Many hotels along the front are now empty and permanently closed, while the medina and the beaches are still lively.

In season the strip has sunbeds, a water park and hotel nightclubs. Take a shared tuk-tuk or the little mini-train: both leave when they fill up and cost around 2-2.5 TND. A horse carriage is the pricey option. The usual choice is a taxi: use the meter or agree the price first.

Port El Kantaoui is a resort village built from scratch in 1979 around a marina with 340 berths. It's designed to look like a white-and-blue Tunisian village, with arches, narrow streets and a copy of a medina. Rough Guide called it "Tunisia without tears," meaning pleasant, artificial and a bit soulless, and it's a fair description. People come for the marina, the boats, the sea and the shaded café terraces.

Walk the quay, look at the yachts, and decide if you'd rather be here. The marina hosts sports from water skiing to paragliding, and there's golf and a water park nearby, so families get the most from it. If that's not you, an hour is plenty. Real Tunisia is back in the medina.

The marina is the easiest place for a long seafood lunch: grilled fish or squid with a mechouia salad and bread. Order the fish by weight and ask the price per kilo before it's weighed. Expect prices to be higher than in the medina.

Several marina restaurants serve beer and wine, which makes it the easy place for an afternoon drink as well. Check the menu prices before you sit down.

The beach beside the marina is a sandy stretch backed by hotels. It is the northern end of the resort coast, and in season you can try water skiing or paragliding from the marina.

If you're here to swim, the sea is the same clear water as at Boujaafar. If it's cold, skip it and take the tuk-tuk back to Sousse for the sunset instead.

Return to Sousse for the evening and eat by the fishing port, where there are grilled-fish restaurants opposite the boats. Choose a fish and have it grilled, with salad, bread and harissa. The 'pirate' ships that take families on short harbor cruises tie up nearby.

Afterwards, walk along the corniche. Hotel bars and a few clubs stay open until late in high season, and the Friday ban on alcohol in shops doesn't apply to bars.

The Amphitheatre of El Jem rises out of a small town on a flat plain. It was built around 238 AD in Thysdrus, a rich olive-oil town, and held an estimated 35,000 spectators. It is one of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world, UNESCO-listed since 1979, and it was probably never finished. In the Middle Ages it served as a fortress and a refuge during the Vandal attacks of 430 and the Arab ones of 647, and in the 19th century it held shops, dwellings and grain stores.

The big breach in the wall was opened in 1695 by Mohamed Bey el Mouradi to end the resistance of his brother's supporters, who had gathered inside. It was widened to about 30 m around 1850. Walk the arena floor and climb the tiers for the view over the town. Monty Python's Life of Brian shot scenes here, and the amphitheatre hosts an annual symphony festival.

Spend an hour just walking. The upper tiers give you a view over the plain and the town, and the stone is easiest to appreciate when the sun is low. At 148 m by 122 m, it is one of the biggest amphitheatres in the world, and standing at the top you feel how the crowd of 35,000 would have looked down at the arena.

Wear shoes with grip, since the stone steps are worn, and bring water. The streets around the amphitheatre also give good views from outside, which is useful if you arrive before it opens.

El Jem is a small town and eating options are simple: cafés and grill places near the amphitheatre and the main road, and a supermarket on the road between the station and the amphitheatre. Have a fricasse, a fried sandwich of tuna, egg, olives and harissa, or a plate of grilled meat with salad. A coffee has been quoted at 0.50 TND.

Eat before the museum, and bring cash.

South-west of the train station, the museum covers the excavated south quarter of Thysdrus, the Roman town. The floor mosaics found around Thysdrus include one with the goddess Africa, and the houses show how the olive-oil wealth was spent.

Allow an hour. The amphitheatre ticket is reported to cover it, but ask at the gate.

The Ribat of Monastir is the oldest in the Maghreb, founded in 796 by the Abbasid governor Harthama ibn A'yan. Over the centuries it grew from a simple square into four buildings around two courtyards, with extra towers added to hold cannon. A spiral staircase of about a hundred steps leads up to the watchtower, where fire signals were exchanged at night with the next ribat down the coast.

It's bigger and more varied than Sousse's, and you can climb several towers for views of the town, the beach and the sea. The larger of the two mosques inside now holds a small collection of ritual objects. Film fans will know it as a location for Monty Python's Life of Brian: the stoning scene was the first filmed here, on the outside wall.

Habib Bourguiba, born in Monastir, led Tunisia to independence in 1956 and was its first president. He began building his own mausoleum here in 1963, in the cemetery of Sidi El Mezeri, at the end of a 200 m avenue. Two minarets 25 m high flank a golden dome with two green ones beside it. He died on 6 April 2000, and he is buried here with his first wife, Mathilde, his parents and his siblings.

Inside is a small museum with his desk from the presidential palace at Carthage, his pens, passports, glasses and clothes. Think of it as the national story told from the family's point of view.

Only a small part of the old medina is left, and it's a short walk from the ribat. It has a bazaar selling the usual pottery, jewelry and carpets, with prices that seem generally lower than in nearby Sousse.

Don't expect a Sousse-size maze. Walk through it, buy a small thing if you like, and go on to the sea.

The marina is a few minutes' walk from the ribat and has a row of restaurants on the water. Order grilled fish or a brik to start, a mechouia salad on the side, and a Celtia beer if the place serves one. Prices are higher than in town.

If you'd rather spend little, take a sandwich from a street stall and eat it on the sea wall.

After lunch, stay on the water for a mint tea or an almond tea at a marina café and watch the boats. It is the right pause before the second half of the day, which is the beach.

If you'd rather skip a second restaurant, a sandwich from a street stall on the sea wall does the same job.

Monastir's beaches are on the western side, in the tourist zone known as Skanes, near the airport, and it lies on the metro line back to Sousse. The metro has stations called Les Hotels and Aéroport Skanès-Monastir, so get off at one, swim or walk the sand, and catch a later train home. The peninsula has sandy and rocky beaches and a cliff of about six kilometers.

The beach is best in summer, when the sea is warm; the sea here is about 21 C in November. Bring a towel and water.