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You're currently reading "ANCIENT CITIES, SEDUCTIVE SOUKS, GORGEOUS BEACHES AND NO OVERTOURISM" an entry on Kate Turkington

Published:: 08.05.26 / 4pm

Category:: Travel

ANCIENT CITIES, SEDUCTIVE SOUKS, GORGEOUS BEACHES AND NO OVERTOURISM

THIS IS TUNISIA.

IT'S FABULOUS.

You arrive in Tunisia in a wash of light.

The Mediterranean is calm—deceptively so. Because this shoreline once held one of the great rivalries of the ancient world.
Here stood Carthage.
A city of ships and trade, of reach and ambition. Its influence stretched far across the sea, carried on the hulls of merchant fleets and the certainty of wealth. Rich, sophisticated, sea-faring. A city of merchants and mariners, its ships stitching together the known world. Where Rome built roads, Carthage ruled the waves.

And across that same sea… Rome was rising.

Europe is only 140 km away...

There stood Carthage—
And between them… inevitability.
The Punic Wars were not a single clash, but a long, grinding rivalry—Rome and Carthage circling one another like wary lions.

What followed were the Punic Wars—three long conflicts, fought over centuries, for control of the Mediterranean world.
At the centre of it all is a name that still carries heat: Hannibal. The general who crossed the Alps with elephants, striking at the heart of Rome itself and shaking an empire that believed itself untouchable.

Crossing the Alps

But ultimately Carthage fell and Rome obliterated almost all traces of the once mighty empire and built cities, amphitheatres, markets and temples on its ruins. Today Tunisia, formerly Carthage has some of the best preserved and most breathtaking Roman ruins in the world.

The ancient Roman city of Dougga

The stage of Dougga's massive theatre

El-Jem Amphitheatre one of the largest in the world. It still hosts concerts and events continuing 17 centuries of living history

El-Jem amphitheatre where some scenes in the Gladiator movies were filmed

Mosaics looking as fresh as when tyhey were first made nearly two thousand years ago

Head of Neptune

Lunch in an ancient olive grove

A visit to Domaine Ben Ishmael, where the family is guardian to a centuries-old olive-growing tradition. Surrounded by 5 000 Carthaginian olive trees, cultivated since Phoenician and Roman times, our group of friends lunch on homemade cheese and local delicacies.

and then...

With daughter Tiffany at Cap Angela

A highlight of our trip was a visit to Cape Angela, the northernmost point in Africa. We'd all been to Cape Algulhas in South Africa, Africa's southernmost point, now we were at the very tip of Africa. Europe is only 140 km away.