5 Days in Tunis

Start where the French town ends and the old one begins. Bab el Bahr, "the sea gate", also called the Porte de France, in its present form dates from 1860, when the French consul had it rebuilt on the axis of the future avenue. The name is a myth magnet: the sea never reached its feet. It simply faces the Lake of Tunis, where the old arsenal and landing stage were.

It's the standard entry point into the medina and the best landmark to give a taxi driver. Cafés and shops line the square, and from here two streets run in: Rue Jemaa Zaytouna, which leads straight to the great mosque, and Rue de la Kasbah, which crosses the whole medina to the government quarter. Take the first one.

The Zitouna Mosque sits in the middle of the medina, and everything around it is arranged by what was sold nearby. It was founded around 698 CE according to most scholars, rebuilt by the Aghlabids in the 9th century (work finished in 864-865), and grew into the city's main center of learning, the University of Ez-Zitouna. The square minaret you see is much younger: the present one dates from 1894. Inside are around 160 columns reused from the ruins of Carthage, so this morning is a preview of day three.

Here's the honest part. Only Muslims can enter the prayer hall, and reports on whether visitors can still go up to a platform on the courtyard edge conflict: older guides mention a ticket, a Tunisian column from July 2026 describes the medina's mosques as closed to non-Muslims, and one traveler's account describes an attendant turning visitors away. Plan to admire the walls and doorways from the lane, and treat a ticket as a bonus. Don't try on Fridays around midday, when the lanes fill with worshippers.

Facing the north wall of the mosque is Souk El Attarine, the perfumers' market, dated by one source to the 13th century. Small shops sell essential oils, soaps, incense and rosewater, and the smell reaches you before you see the stalls. Beyond it the lanes split by trade, the way old Arab cities were organized: the Souk Trouk (Turkish souk) was the tailors' street, and nearby the chechia makers work, the red felt caps that Tunisian craftsmen of Andalusian origin are known for. One guide says making a single cap takes at least two months.

The main routes are marked touristique, and prices there start high, but a few steps off them it's a real working market. Haggle with a smile, start at about half the first price, and only if you intend to buy. Don't follow anyone who offers to show you a cooperative or a roof for nothing.

Lunch today should be lablabi, the chickpea soup poured over pieces of stale bread with garlic, cumin and olive oil, usually with a soft egg, a spoon of harissa and a squeeze of lemon, and often a few chunks of tuna. It began as a winter breakfast, which is why November is the right time, and now it's eaten at any hour, including as the late-night fix after a party.

A Tunisian counter-style eatery gives you a bowl in minutes. Hattab Barrouta, in the Passage area just outside the medina, is a lablabi house said to be 60 years old, and Lablabi du Peuple turns up in a 2026 street-food guide. Hours aren't confirmed, so go before 2pm and look for the place with locals at the counter. Order it with everything and ask for the harissa on the side.

Dar Ben Abdallah is an 18th-century palace-house in the southern medina, the museum of popular arts and traditions since the 1970s, with rooms around a courtyard showing how a well-off Tunis family lived. Here's the catch: Tunisian press described it as closed for restoration for years, and the heritage agency's page still lists winter hours of 9am-4pm, closed Mondays. Treat it as a maybe and ask a shopkeeper nearby.

A few minutes' walk away is the Tourbet el Bey, the largest funerary monument in Tunis, built in the reign of Ali II (1759-1782), where most of the Husainid rulers are buried. It was reported reopened in 2023, but one guide site now lists it as closed for restoration. If both are shut, walk the dyers' lanes around them instead.

End the day on a roof. Panorama Medina, in the heart of the souks, is listed with a large rooftop looking over the old houses and the mosque domes, and tea costs about 2 TND. Café M'Rabet on the Souk Trouk is another café in the medina where you can sit with a mint tea.

Sunset in mid-November is around 5pm, so go up at about 4:30 to see the light go. After that, the medina empties quickly, and your best option for dinner is on the avenue, which is a short walk back to the sea gate.

The Bardo is housed in an old palace of the beys on the edge of the city and has been a museum since 1888. It's one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics in the world, and they come from Carthage, Dougga, Utica and other Tunisian sites, so the museum is the best way to see what you'll meet on days three and five. The famous pieces include the Virgil mosaic, the Blue Quran of Kairouan in the Islamic section, and the marble bust of Aphrodite from the Mahdia shipwreck.

On 18 March 2015 gunmen attacked the museum and took hostages. More than twenty people died, almost all of them foreign tourists. A major refurbishment finished in 2012, designed by SCPA Codou-Hindley and Amira Nouira, had added 9,000 square meters to the complex. Spend your time on the mosaic halls: the rooms are large, and the scenes of fishing, farming and mythology are far more fun than a label suggests.

Back in the center, lunch is ojja: eggs cooked in a spicy sauce of tomatoes and peppers, usually with merguez sausage, a Tunisian cousin of shakshuka. Restaurant Ojja Chouchou on Rue Borj Bourguiba is listed as a budget favorite with large portions and quick service, so you can be in and out in an hour.

Order it with bread, a mechouia salad of grilled peppers and tomatoes on the side, and a mint tea afterward. Ask for the harissa separately: it's hot enough to change the dish.

The cathedral stands at the western end of the avenue and shows how much of Tunis was built by the French protectorate. Its cornerstone was laid in 1881 and it opened at Christmas 1897, in a mix of Moorish, Gothic and Byzantine styles, with the towers added in 1910. It is named after Saint Vincent de Paul, a French priest who was captured by pirates as a young man and sold as a slave in Tunis.

It faces the Place de l'Indépendance, where Avenue Habib Bourguiba begins. The interior isn't always open, so enjoy the facade and the square from outside, and use the chance to look at how the avenue is laid out: trees down the middle, cafés on both sides and a clock tower at the far end.

Halfway along the avenue is the white facade of the Théâtre Municipal, built in the Art Nouveau style and inaugurated on 20 November 1902 as the Casino municipal de Tunis. It's the capital's main theatre and worth a look even if you don't go in.

If you're curious, check the posters at the door: it hosts concerts, opera and ballet, and an evening ticket is one of the cheaper ways to see the capital's cultural life. You can also see the Art Nouveau lines best from the opposite pavement.

Avenue Habib Bourguiba is the central thoroughfare of Tunis, compared to the Champs-Élysées, and named for the first president of independent Tunisia. It runs east-west from the clock tower to the cathedral, then continues as Avenue de France toward the medina gate. Many of the capital's key buildings stand on it.

It's also the capital's protest street: during the 2011 uprising, many demonstrations calling for President Ben Ali's downfall were held here, and demonstrations still gather on it, so check the news before you go and leave if a crowd forms. Otherwise, walk it end to end. Expect a few too many "friends" who start a conversation, as travel advice warns: the same non, merci works here.

Finish the day at one of the old cafés on the avenue. Café de Paris is listed as one of the major cafés, open from 6am to midnight, popular and lively, with outdoor tables in mild weather. Sit with a coffee or a mint tea and watch the evening promenade, which is the real sight here.

For dinner, couscous, grilled fish and other Tunisian dishes are common in this neighborhood. Alcohol is served in hotel bars and some restaurants, and you'll find the Tunisian beer Celtia on most menus where it's sold.

The first stop is the Tophet, a sacred precinct in the Salammbô district, dedicated to the Phoenician gods Tanit and Baal and next to the old harbors. It's a field of small stone markers over the burials of children. Whether those children were sacrificed or buried after early deaths is one of the oldest arguments in archaeology: ancient Greek and Roman writers said sacrifice, and some modern scholars see an anti-Carthaginian smear and a children's cemetery.

The markers carry carved symbols, and there are few signs, so a guide or a few minutes of reading help. Allow a short visit: the point is to stand in the place where the argument is.

A few minutes' walk from the Tophet are the remains of the Punic ports. Carthage was often called an empire of the sea, a trading power built on its ships, and the city itself dates from 814 BC by the most widely accepted date. What you see now is water and low ground with modern streets around it, so you'll need some imagination.

Treat it as a quick stop and a lesson in geography: it explains why the city sat exactly here, and why Rome needed a nearly three-year siege to destroy it in 146 BC. The best view of the old harbor area is from the top of Byrsa hill.

Byrsa is the hill at the heart of the old Carthage. The legend says Queen Dido, arriving from Tyre, was offered as much land as an oxhide could cover, cut the hide into thin strips, and enclosed this hill. Whatever the truth, it was the citadel, and the last part of the city to fall to the Romans in 146 BC.

Today it's a view over the Gulf of Tunis, with excavated Punic streets and Roman remains. The National Museum of Carthage, next to the former Saint-Louis cathedral, has been closed for a rehabilitation project with no reopening date given, and only the grounds are open. Come for the view and the streets, not the museum.

Lunch near the hill is more of a restaurant meal than a street snack. Le Rest'O, on Byrsa, is listed with Mediterranean cooking and views over the city and bay. The cheaper alternative is one of the local sandwich shops north of the Carthage Byrsa station, which sell cheap bites and coffee, so a fricassé or a brik is easy to find.

Couscous with fish is the dish to look for on this coast. It is the national dish made with the day's catch instead of lamb. Ask what the catch is before you order, and ask for the price of fish before it is weighed.

The Museum of Roman and Paleochristian Art in Carthage Dermech reopened on 3 December 2025 after renovations that began in April 2024. It holds about 400 pieces from the late Roman and early Christian city, with interactive tablets that explain items such as the Ganymede statue and the circus of Carthage. It's open every day, and entry is free on the first Sunday of each month and on public holidays.

It's also your indoor stop when it rains, which in November is likely on at least one of your days. Ask at the ticket desk whether the single Carthage ticket covers it.

The Hill of the Odeon and the park of the Roman villas are on the single ticket, and this is the part of Carthage where you walk rather than queue. The Roman theatre is in the same area, a short way from the Antonine Baths.

Plan to wander. Only some sites have English signs, and the signposts between them are sketchy, so keep your phone map open and your ticket in your pocket. If you have energy left, the Malga cisterns and the Roman amphitheater are further inland, and both are small compared with the baths.

Finish at the Antonine Baths, the ruins of the largest Roman baths outside Rome itself. The site sits by the sea and also holds a Punic cemetery, old houses, Punic kilns, a chapel and mosaics. It's the best place in Carthage to feel the scale of the Roman city that replaced the Punic one, and guides are available in several languages if you want help reading it.

There is a small café on the grounds for water and snacks. Further north, near Carthage Présidence station, the Basilica of Saint-Cyprien is a free, empty site with a sea view. Leave in time to catch the TGM before dark.

Sidi Bou Said climbs a cliff above the Gulf of Tunis, 19 km from the center. It takes its name from a religious figure, Abu Said al-Baji, who died in 1231 and was buried here, and in the 18th century wealthy Tunis families built houses around the shrine. In the 1920s Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger popularized the blue-and-white color scheme. The village was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 25 July 2026, and the committee asked Tunisia to report on its conservation by December 2027.

It's busy and aimed at visitors, and in January 2026 the heaviest rain in decades caused landslides on the fragile hillside. Still, the whites, blues and bougainvillea on the lanes are worth the trip. Walk up from the station, lose the main street, and look at the doors and window grilles, which are painted and different on almost every house.

Ennejma Ezzahra is the palace of Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger, who lived here until his death in 1932. It's now a museum of Arab and Mediterranean music with a collection of historic instruments, and it hosts classical and Arabic concerts. After the crowds on the lanes, it's a calmer hour indoors.

Listed hours are 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday, and 9am to 3pm in July and August, so check before you go. If you only have time for one museum in the village, this is the one.

Café des Délices, also called Café Sidi Chaabane, sits on the cliff with a view over the gulf and is still listed as open by current guides. Reviewers call it touristy and the prices high, and they praise the view, which is the real reason to come. Order a mint tea with pine nuts and sit on the terrace.

The other local treat is bambalouni, a sugar-dusted ring doughnut fried to order and sold from shops across the village. It's the dish most associated with Sidi Bou Said, and you eat it hot, with sugar or honey, standing in the street. Skip the old Café des Nattes: it closed in 2023 after a dispute and its present status is unclear.

A few stops further up the TGM line is La Marsa, a coastal town of about 100,000 people known for its beaches, its upscale residential areas and its restaurants. Walk the corniche, then go down to the beach. In mid-November the sea is around 20°C, so a short swim is possible on a sunny day, but this isn't a day for a towel and a book. The beach season is summer.

Next to La Marsa is Gammarth, an upmarket resort town with large hotels, villas and coves, 15-20 km from the city center. If you want a real beach day, that's the direction. Otherwise, keep the afternoon slow: a coffee on the corniche, a walk, and the train back before dark.

La Goulette is the port of Tunis, on the TGM line between the city and Carthage, and the ferries leave from here. La Sirène is listed with a simple method: you pick the fish from their market and they fry it on the spot, with indoor and outdoor seating and water views. It can get busy, so go early.

Order a few small dishes first: a brik, a mechouia salad, then the fish with lemon and a bowl of harissa. Check the TGM timetable before dinner. The last trains run late but not all night, and the Tunis Marine to La Goulette section has had works.

The cheap way is the louage, the shared taxi that leaves when it is full. Go to the Bab Saadoun station in northwest Tunis, ask for Téboursouk, and wait for the car to fill. The ride takes about 80 minutes to two hours. At Téboursouk, take a taxi for the last stretch, since the site is a few kilometers from town.

Agree the fare before you start and arrange a pickup time for the return, since there are likely no taxis waiting at the ruins. If that sounds like too much, hire a driver for the day or join a day tour; both are widely offered.

Dougga was a Berber, Punic and Roman settlement 4.6 km southwest of Téboursouk, and UNESCO listed it in 1997 as the best-preserved Roman small town in North Africa. It survived because it sits in open countryside, unlike Carthage, which was built over for centuries.

Start with the Roman theatre, built around AD 168-169 and seating about 3,500, and look out over the valley. Then climb to the Capitol, a 2nd-century temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, completed around AD 166-167, and the square with the compass rose engraved on its floor, the Rose of the Winds. The Temple of Saturn sits on a promontory overlooking the valley.

The Libyco-Punic Mausoleum, a 21 m tower tomb from the 2nd century BC, is the oldest sight here and the one with a story. In 1842 the British consul Sir Thomas Reade removed a bilingual inscription from it and damaged the monument. The inscription is now in the British Museum, and it helped scholars decode the Libyan script.

Walk on to the Temple of Juno Caelestis on the outskirts, excavated in the 1890s and restored between 1904 and 1914, and the Licinian Baths, a 3rd-century gift to the town, mostly for winter bathing. The light is best from about 3pm, but leave enough time to get back to Téboursouk.

Téboursouk is the closest town, and it's where your louage or taxi will drop you. Eat there rather than at the ruins, where there is almost nothing. Ask your driver for a simple café or grill house with locals at the tables, and carry dinars in small notes, because cards are unlikely to work in a small town.

Order a brik if it is on the menu, and keep the harissa on the side. Then arrange your ride back before you finish your tea.