Hammamet

Hammamet is closer to Tunis than Sousse and therefore a better base for Carthage and the Bardo, but has less around it — Cap Bon and Nabeul are day trips, El Jem and Kairouan are not. The key decision is between old Hammamet, with the medina and beach in town, and Yasmine Hammamet, a hotel zone ten kilometres south built to look like a medina.

The walk through the old town starts at the kasbah, on the corner of a 15th-century medina standing on the beach itself. The ramparts are walked for the view over the bay and the rooftops, an hour is enough, and the souk inside the walls sells rugs and leather without the hard sell you'd expect. Right below the walls are the beach and quay of the old town, where fishing boats come in at dusk and where restaurants outside the hotels sell fish by the kilo, far cheaper than in the hotels.

The quay continues north, past hotels from the sixties and seventies set in gardens, which still keep the rule that no building may stand taller than a cypress — which is why this shore has stayed green. The walk ends at Villa Sebastian, the 1920s house of a Romanian investor with a pool ringed by columns, which first put Hammamet on the map. Today it is a cultural centre with a festival in July and August, and can be walked into at any time of day.

This is where you choose a base. Old Hammamet, around the kasbah and the quay, keeps you within an evening's walk of dinner looking out at the fishing boats. Yasmine Hammamet, ten kilometres south, is something else: a development from the 2000s with a marina and a 'medina' that is a shopping centre built in the old style, with walls and a souk where sellers push harder than in the real thing. Package all-inclusive deals mostly go here, and it works as a holiday by a pool. A taxi to the old town is a short, regular ride, worth taking at least twice a week.

The day trips run in two directions: Cap Bon and the capital. Nabeul, train (SNCFT, via Bir Bou Rekba), is the pottery town with a Friday market the whole peninsula comes to — go in the morning, until noon it is over. Kelibia, an hour's drive away, has a 6th-century fortress on a hill above the harbour and El Mansoura beach below it; seeing both takes a full day. Tunis, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, an hour on the motorway, are the one organised excursion the hotel sells that is worth buying if you're not going alone; travelling independently means the train from Bir Bou Rekba or a louage from the station. Hammamet itself is reached via Enfidha airport, taxi; no public bus, about 40 min to the hotel.