Tunisia

Bus to TataouineThe bus turned out to be a very old accordion bus – which I thought was an odd choice for a 3 hour trip to Tataouine, especially considering that the bus was mostly empty.…

Continuing our trek south, we took a train to Gabes. There isn’t much to do here. We stayed at Hotel Regina, because it was late and we couldn’t be bothered to find anywhere else (navigating this town is not an easy feat).…

Continuing south from El Jem, we were headed to Sfax. Our Lonely Planet indicated that the bus station was right outside the train station, but, well, it wasn’t there. It didn’t really exist – one simply has to stop on the road and wait for the bus.…

The next day we took a day trip out to Carthage. Carthage is about a 30 minute train ride outside of Tunis. The TGM is the name of the train line that took us there – it’s a small train line that runs up the Tunisian coast past Carthage and Sidi Bou Said.…

Coliseum of El Jem Our next destination was El Jem. The only reason to go to El Jem is a magnificently preserved coliseum. It is directly off the train line heading south out of Tunis.…

Grand Mosque in TunisThe next morning we headed off to the medina. First up, we wanted to visit the Great Mosque, as the courtyard is open to visitors only until 11AM.…

We arrived in Tunis late at night, as we had wanted a full day stopover in Paris. The airport was easy to navigate, with an ATM right at the exit, and soon we were on our way to our hotel.…

Inside the cities, taxis are a pretty cheap option, if it’s too far to walk. We never tried any local buses. Between the cities, there’s bus, rail, and louage. Some buses are government run, and the rest are a hodge podge of local companies, using buses that by all right

We’ve met some people who thought we were brave to go to Tunisia independently. We never once felt threatened. The only time we felt vaguely uncomfortable, was sort of our fault.…

We speak French fluently, which certainly helped us navigate the country. Unlike Morocco, almost everyone speaks French – not just people involved in the tourist business. Both old and young, educated and non, all had a working amount of French.…