UNESCO Medina, World's Best Roman Mosaics at Bardo, Carthage Ruins, Sidi Bou Said Blue-White Village & Dougga Roman City
📍 Tunis, Tunisia📅 3-day itinerary
The North African capital where the UNESCO Medina (700 classified monuments in 270 hectares, founded by Arab conquerors in 698 CE, organised around the 703 CE Al-Zaytouna Mosque whose theological university was the model for Al-Azhar and the Qarawiyyin) sits 10 km from the ruins of Carthage (the Phoenician city of Dido, destroyed by Rome in 146 BCE and rebuilt as the Roman capital of Africa), while the Bardo National Museum holds the finest collection of Roman mosaics in the world (Ulysses and the Sirens; the Virgil portrait; the 14-metre Meleager hunt) and Sidi Bou Said's blue-and-white hilltop village — Paul Klee visited in 1914 and wrote "colour and I are one, I am a painter" — looks over the Gulf of Tunis.
The 7th-Century Arab City Founded by Hassan ibn al-Nu'man on the Roman Temple Site — The 703 CE Al-Zaytouna Mosque Whose 184 Columns Were Taken from the Ruins of Carthage and Whose Theology School Was the Model for Al-Azhar University in Cairo — and the Souk El Chechia Where the Red Felt Cap of the Ottoman Empire Is Still Made by Hand
The Bardo's Virgil Portrait (the Only Known Contemporary Image of the Poet Composing the Aeneid) and the Ulysses Mosaic (the Hero Lashed to the Mast While the Sirens Sing, the Most Famous Odyssey Scene in Roman Art) — Then the Carthaginian Site Where Hannibal Was Born Before He Crossed the Alps with 37 Elephants — Then Sidi Bou Said Where Paul Klee Understood Colour in April 1914
Dougga's Capitol Temple (the Most Intact Corinthian Temple Outside Rome, Built 2nd Century CE in the Wheat-Growing Heartland That Fed the City of Rome) and the 3,500-Seat Theatre Still Used for Performances — and the Avenue Bourguiba Where the Jasmine Revolution's Final Demonstration Forced Ben Ali to Flee Tunisia on January 14, 2011