Wealth, both ancient and modern – that’s the impression I got from Carthage. There is a nice little tram that runs from a station about a ½ hour walk from the medina.

“Tunis marine” is also where my bus arrived from the airport, it has a shared taxi station and a metro station. The tram takes about a ½ hour to Carthage, and along the way I got a sense of the industrial port of Tunis. The tram is modest and the stations in need of some repair; not anymore than stations all over the world, but I reacted to the contrast with the neighborhood.

Because the contemporary residential district seems to indicate folks here are as well off if not more so than in the area along the beach north of Sousse.

I passed pickup at a school with the parents waiting outside in their cars, looking a lot like pickup at a small suburban school in the States. Nearby was this tennis club.

In the old days this was also a nice place to live. The Punic residents had airy houses up the hill.

Then when the Romans’ destroyed and rebuilt it, they constructed a huge public bath right on the beach.

Even though now one can only see the underground parts, a sign overlooking the site really helps.

More evidence of this being a spot those with means are drawn to: from the Antonine baths you can see the (a?) Presidential residence. (It is the series of white constructions on the hill.)

The whole area could not be more beautiful at this time of year, cool and windy but not cold and with the Mediterranean air.

The Sousse shared taxi station is on the edge of town, my apartment also seemed to be out of town in a different direction, and I wasn’t sure what local shared taxi would get me there. So I splurged on a private taxi! The apartment was brand new construction and a block from the beach. It was fun to see people walking on the beach and surf fishing. Also interesting was the texted warning from my host – drinking alcohol, being “bare”, and kissing were allowed in the Porte El Kantaoui area to the north, but not in the neighborhood. Nowhere else has anyone bothered to caution me about this – perhaps evidence of the larger and less sensitive tourist presence in Sousse at times.

That said I really like Sousse, at least in March. The “liberal” area my host was referring to was built in the 70s especially as a destination for tourists.

There are shops, restaurants (that serve alcohol, as noted) and a a small children’s amusement park around the harbor. It was full of people…all of them Tunisian families or couples out for a nice evening! It was a very positive atmosphere – no carousing that I could see.

The next day I headed to the Sousse medina. Logistical note – turns out you can flag down a local shared taxi really fast on the north-south road, they take you to “Hammam Sousse”, a commercial district one road inland and somewhat to the south, and there you switch to another shared taxi to Sousse medina. On the way we went through “Place Lublijana” – I wonder what the story is behind that! In any case, the Sousse old town is gorgeous, right on the sea, with the highlight being climbing the Ribat tower.

Built to protect against marauding Christians (hah – each were the others marauders) the Ribat is an unadorned fortress but the location and history is evocative. From the top you can see the active working port of today.

Walking around the walls of the city was also beautiful.

Alas the kasbah, which is now the archeological museum, is closed on Mondays.

There are some strongish attempts in the medina to “guide” but there were not very many tourists there at all and it is clearly an operational local souk and neighborhood.

And just outside the walls was this inspirational mural – two sci-fi Tunisians telling you, “You are bigger than you think you are!”

Walking to the shared taxi stand in Kairouan I met this guy, though his owner wasn’t too happy about my taking his picture.

My shared taxi left immediately after I arrived and I think it wasn’t a coincidence – another was leaving as I bought my ticket. So at least Sunday morning at 8:45 am this is a very frequent run.

Something I’ve seen on several shared taxis – they stop for gas soon after leaving. You’d think efficiency would have them do that when there aren’t eight passengers waiting – but perhaps they need to wait until they’ve collected the money, or perhaps they don’t want to lose their own time of going out and filling up empty. I wondered if a gas station could do good business locating at the louage station, and what do you know – there was one at the Sousse station! The trip was 1h15, including a gas stop and road construction (they seem to be improving the Kairouan-Sousse road). The Sousse louage station is massive and as always drivers are happy to get you to the right place. Both at Kairouan and in Sousse I bought a ticket from a ticket seller and the prices were posted. I was #7 of 8 in my louage, and then we waited for about 15 minutes for our last rider. On the road from Sousse to El Jem at 10:15 am. When we turned onto the road south toward Sfax we were on a different quality road than I think I’ve been on. A1 appears to be limited access highway with a speed limit of 110 kph. (Not that the driver would have  known – i was sitting in the front seat and could see his speedometer wasn’t working!) Noted along the way – a taxi with a “dolphin-safe” sticker on it (?!) you can’t see it, but I promise it was there!

We arrived in El Jem at 11:15am and it was a 15 minute walk to the amphitheater (you can see it from everywhere!)

The amphitheater is huge – third largest in the Roman world, last massive undertaking in the Roman West (200s CE).

Some cool history – basically the area was dry and poor until irrigation made olive oil a booming business. The town was so rich that later Roman emperors overtaxed it and caused a successful revolt.

A walk through the town takes you to the museum. I thought this could be a bit of a scam even though reviews of the museum were positive. No scam – the museum is totally great and is located where it is because that’s where they found most of the wealthy Roman houses. There are fabulous mosaics, (here I am bonding with a mosaic of the “genius of the year” – really!)

Several of my other favorites included the detail of Silenus riding on a camel

and this poor creature being torn apart by lions.

The largest house in Roman Africa was discovered in another part of town and reconstructed here. There are also ruins of several other houses in situ – make sure to keep going through the rooms and out into the back.

I thought I’d try something new by taking the train back to Sousse, and the station was beautiful.

But it was going to be more than an hour, so I headed back to the shared taxi station. I just missed one but the next filled up in fifteen minutes.