Tunisia Travel Guide
10/17/2006 at 10:15 AM
Tags: Roman, Tunisia, Attractions (all tags)
Over in Ireland the Belfast Telegraph published their
Complete Guide to Tunisia this week, reminding us what a gem of a place it is to visit. There's a pun there, but you probably won't recognize it until we tell you about El Jem.
You know the Colosseum in Rome, right? Move it to the middle of the desert, shrink it just a touch (you won't notice the size difference, though, because in the desert there's nothing to compare it to) and build in particularly claustrophobic underground chambers for those ferocious animals and bold-hearted gladiators. Oh, and sell cous-cous at the restaurant next door instead of spaghetti.
Now you have El Jem's colosseum, a few hours by train south of Tunisia's capital Tunis. So next time you're craving a fill of impressive Roman ruins, flick the tourist crowds and try our favorite gem of a colosseum instead.
[Photo:
alanaplin]
Related stories:
· Complete Guide to Tunisia [Belfast Telegraph]
· Hannibal's Hometown Fest [Jaunted]
· Bardo Museum Worth Roman to Find [Jaunted]
by amandak
8/02/2006 at 8:50 AM
Tags: Tunisia, festivals (all tags)
If you were listening in school when the teacher droned on about Roman history maybe
Carthage rings a bell. It's not just a chapter to memorize for a test, but a fairly impressive travel destination as well. The huge multi-site collection of Roman ruins in northern
Tunisia is a short train ride north of the capital Tunis, and attractions include the Antonine Thermal Bath ruins, where you can still imagine the opulent surroundings where emperors might have bathed many centuries ago, and of course a typical Roman amphitheater.
This theater is still used today for the
Carthage Festival, a music and arts fest that's taken place for 42 years and counting. Running from mid-July to mid-August, in 2006 there will be theater pieces, dance, concerts and even poetry readings from Tunisia and as far afield as the USA, France and Korea. Nobody super-famous reached the playlist this year, but previous performers have included Ray Charles, Youssou Ndour, Joe Cocker and Louis Armstrong. After Mariah Carey's
mixed reception in Tunisia last week, (can you believe some commentators thought she was too sexy?) she might not make the bill next year either, but keep the Carthage Festival on your list of possibilities when you're roaming the world.
[Image via lil/Flickr]
Related stories:
Art as a Commodity [Alarab Online]
Bardo Museum Worth Roman For [Jaunted]
by amandak
7/27/2006 at 9:46 AM
Tags: museums, Africa (all tags)
If it's good enough for Mariah Carey, it's good enough for us. Mariah opened a tour in
Tunisia this week. Long a popular summer holiday destination for Europeans, the Tunisians haven't really worked out how to market themselves to the rest of the world. Tunisia sits on that funny north-west corner of Africa, sticking into the Mediterranean, and is surrounded by less tourist-friendly destinations like Libya and Algeria.
But there really is stuff to see, beyond the beach umbrellas and cocktails by the resort pools. If you land in the capital, Tunis, our biggest must-see tip is the
Bardo Museum. You see, Tunisia is actually full of ancient Roman sites and artifacts, and the ones that have been ripped out of place (for preservation reasons, of course) have mostly landed here. Massive mosaics are the most impressive feature, when you try to imagine the hours and hours of fiddly work needed to create a picture from thousands of tiny colored stones. For us, the effect is really magical, but for them, it's a pity nobody told them about paint.
[Image via lil/Flickr]
Related stories:
Mariah Carey in Tunisia [Babnet]
Is Tunis Worth Seeing? [Times Online]
by amandak
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