| After visiting the medina, we took a taxi to the present day Tunis suburb of Carthage to visit the Punic archeological site on Byrsa Hill, dating from the time of Hannibal around the 3rd century BC. Lots of imagination was needed at this site as only a small fragment of the original Punic residential quarter remained. A drawing in the adjacent museum made it easier to visualize both the Punic houses running down the side of Byrsa Hill to the waterfront and Carthage�s two interconnecting harbors: its outside commercial harbor and inside naval harbor. Due to its powerful navy, Carthage was the main power in the western Mediterranean for almost 400 years until finally defeated by the Romans in 146 BC. |
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| Old Punic Harbor |
| Returning to Bizerte late Tuesday afternoon, we still had work to do on the boat before we could depart Tunisia. Looking at the weather, it seemed plausible that we could stay one more day in Bizerte and still make the weather window, although we realized that we would be on the tail end of this easterly flow. So instead of checking out of Tunisia on Wednesday, we checked out around noon on Thursday, August 28. By mid-afternoon we were headed west. |
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