In Bizerte we ended up being on �borrowed� weather time. Tuesday, August 26, we had planned to spend the entire day in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia and one of its major �must see� towns. Upon looking at the weather that morning, our favorable weather window appeared to be closing in 5 days; we needed at least 4 to 5 days of good weather to sail west to mainland Spain. So instead of leaving Bizerte like we should have, we opted for just a few hours in Tunis rather than all day. We traveled to Tunis in a �louage� (long-distance shared taxi), a great form of public transportation in Tunisia at the same price as a bus. Unlike buses that traveled on fixed time schedules, louages traveled when full. Ours was an eight passenger van, and our wait was never more than 15 minutes. The drive itself was around 50 minutes. Due to our short time in Tunis, we decided to visit only the medina at Tunis and the main Punic archeological site at Carthage, both World Heritage sites, limiting our time at each site.
The medina (old town) at Tunis was interesting due to its model Islamic layout in which the main mosque (Great Mosque) was located in the center and its different souqs (trades) radiated out from it, all arranged hierarchically. The more noble or clean the souq, the nearer to the mosque the souq was located. The dirtier souqs were pushed out toward the edge of the medina. We entered through Bab (Gate) Jedid, built around the 13th century. Once inside, we were on the Street of the Blacksmiths, considered one of the dirtier trades. Afterwards, we walked toward the center of the medina along its narrow streets, designed to keep the town cool in the summer and warm in the winter. |
