Chapter III
'The Battle of Carthage'
January 2023,
The first of many to follow, the annual birthday bookings commences, although I enjoy more than anything going out on the piss in the UK… by the time i’ve had my weekly consumption of drinks all rolled into 24hrs, the bank account starts to look a little worse for wear and all I have to show for it is a migraine and wet clothes due to it being January. It started to become apparent ‘why wouldn’t I’ go away and probably save money in a hotter a country. So what better website to offer packages for 3/4 days over my birthday than ‘LoveHolidays,’ similar to ‘onthebeach’ as used in a previous trip, they don’t tend to throw loads of hidden costs into the package, just flights and hotel, sort your own transfers, bags etc simple. The package itself cost me around £250, travelled from London Gatwick around midday arrived in Hammamet, Tunisia in the evening, flight I think was around 3hrs.
You fly into Enfidha-Hammamet which is about 30mins south of Hammamet then 40mins north of Sousse, there is more holiday destinations than you think in Tunisia and from what i’ve seen id recommend the endeavour. I stayed in ‘Sud Hammamet’ in a place called ‘Steigenberger Marhaba Thalasso‘ its right on the beach like most and ideal location for just going for a walk out onto the strip for shopping, local cuisines etc I started my morning in the hotel breakfast bar and then took to the beach, I took a stroll up the beach towards Hammamet town, it takes about an hour or you can grab a taxi that takes about 10mins, once again being outside of Europe I recommend an e-sim, although I don’t recommend purely being reliant on your phone for directions etc, but It just VERY useful to have incase something was to happen, theres nothing more satisfying just going for a walk and stumbling upon something unexpected especially off the beaten ‘tourist’ track. There was beach bars ‘which I stopped in’ of course, more hotel resorts with various beach games, sports taking place and an amphitheatre to my surprise.
On arriving at the old town, Hammamet Fort, theres a pretty awesome statue overlooking the sea, there are several entrances into the fort but the streets are very tight so be warned, near the entrance someone approached me telling me more about the fort and the meanings etc, now we go back here to ‘In Africa, everything is about money’ still haven’t learned completely have I… But what I will say they made it very apparent at the start no money just look, we went through the old town, the shops, the cafes, its a very public place so you feel safe, obviously I wouldn’t advise the same service at night in my own city never mind a foreign one, but that brings me back to the point, be vigilant and not an idiot, but don’t always assume people in these countries are here to rip you off or worse! Ive met nicer genuine people on my travels, than in my home town ten times over. I also understand all 6ft of me is a much harder target for pickpockets or thieves than maybe a solo female traveller but this is my blog so not my issue. Cheers. After he taught me about the town he offered me into his mothers store for a tradition cup of tea (Maghrebi Mint Tea and its brilliant) its a North African delicacy and I still make some at home now! In their store they had many traditional clothing garments, jewellery, footwear everything tbh I took up a fair bit of their time and tbh vice versa, so I bought some things which I am sure that was technically the payment they were after from taking me on a walking tour around the city, but they seemed happy and so was I, so who really cares about £30.
Whilst daylight was fading I took to some more walking into the city, I don’t think January was prime time around these areas so there wasn’t a tremendous amount open, but I wasn’t looking for somewhere to drink myself into a coma just a place to eat, watch the ‘el Classico’ and have some good food, which there are plenty. I ended up in the marina I cant quite remember the restaurant name, there was nothing overly special about it, but they seemed to want to impress as all of the food was served in style, then sunk the biggest red wine goblet I have ever seen all for a massive grand total of 50 Tunisian Dinar ‘£15’ in my opinion people really need to start exploring outside the regular destinations.
The birthday has arrived and having a fascination with greek mythology, the Roman Empire, the Egyptians, history in general it seems, I started to do some research at the breakfast bar again over looking the swimming pool, the ruins and remnants of ‘the battle of Carthage’ is located near the capital ‘Tunis’ I looked up taxi’s and its a good hours travel, there is several sites to visit but all have an entry cost, so I ended up arranging with the hotel, they were able to get me a driver who would pick me up from the hotel, take me to Tunis and then to the first site which was Bardo museum which you only really go there to purchase a ‘Carthage ticket’ this will get you in to all sites, and cost less than ticket fare, the driver would wait until I was finished walking around wait outside and take me to the next, I went to 7 maybe 8 different locations which took less than 5 mins drive between each, there was Roman baths, Antonine baths, roman theatres, sanctuary’s, resting places, everything tbh it was incredibly interesting. To top it all off we finished at the top Byrsa Hill and the view was awesome!
The driver then recommended going to ‘Said’ its an awesome town, which the majority you walk uphill, its not as bad as it sounds trust me, its not a big town at all, and every 5 metres theres an awesome shop, bar, restaurant everything. He told me 2 hours before he needs to get back to Hammamet so that was plenty of time for me to do some exploring and have a well earned drink on my birthday, had a browse in some shops, there was a great pizza place I had some food in, then atop of the hill was one of the best bars for views I have ever been!
You notice straight away why people recommend coming to Said, every building in the town is white and blue, on some research the town is actually called ‘Sidi Bou Said’ its something to do with a French artist but a very popular item around these areas is a blue and white eye as a charm, something people used to fend off a story about somebody with the evil eye, looked it up looks like they just had a really bad lazy eye myself, but hey ho. As you can imagine looking at the pictures and I highly recommend googling, its an absolutely awesome place to visit with lots going on, I stayed until as late as I could and met the driver back up and headed to the hotel, I tipped the driver about a tenner for the
entire day and he was delighted, as I said it’s incredibly affordable. Theres also such places to visit where they filmed ‘Star Wars’ the Tunisian town ‘Tataouine served as inspiration for the making of ‘Tatooine’ not very creative for the name I admit but its 100% got to be worth going to if you are a Star Wars fan. It was a short trip to grab some sun at an incredible price, and it fully delivered haven’t really got anything bad to say about my time is Tunisia and I didn’t even scratch the surface. See you next time.
