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Bardo Museum Worth Roman to Find

July 27, 2006 at 9:46 AM | 0 Comments

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]