Tunis
The capital the charters skip: a medina that is real rather than a set, the museum with the most Roman mosaics anywhere, and Carthage at the end of a suburban train
- When to go
- October 22° · 8 rainy days
- Per day
- €€price 2 of 5
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 7 km Tunis · 86 km Enfidha
- Right now
Tunis is the city most visitors see through a coach window on the way to Carthage, and that is an omission two nights fix easily: the medina is walked all day without a ticket, the Bardo is one of the best museums on the Mediterranean, and Carthage and Sidi Bou Said are on the suburban railway for a few euros.
The medina is the reason to come and does not resemble the Moroccan ones: fewer tourists, less pushing, and more people who actually shop here. You enter through Bab el Bhar from Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the main street of the French city with its cafés and trees, and walk to the Zitouna mosque in the middle — which is not visited inside, but from the roof of the carpet shop beside it you see the whole city. The souks are laid out by trade as five hundred years ago: perfumes, hats, gold, and you recognise each by smell before the sign.
The Bardo is in the former bey's palace in the west of the city and holds Roman mosaics from villa floors across the country — halls where the floor is the museum and the walls are the palace. The foreigner ticket is €8.90 and needs 3 h; it is closed on Mondays, a taxi from the centre a couple of euros on the meter. It is the one site in Tunisia we would call compulsory, and hotel groups often skip it for Carthage, which is the wrong choice.
The TGM suburban train from the station at the end of the avenue runs across the lagoons to Carthage and Sidi Bou Said in 30 min, and that is the easiest day trip in the country. The city itself is walked: the French part is flat and has pavements, the medina is uphill and has none. In the evening the avenue is full until midnight, while the medina closes with its shops — anyone wanting dinner in the medina books one of the palaces turned restaurants, because otherwise you do not go there after dark.
Guides for Tunis
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Tunis in 2 days
→The medina and the Bardo on day one, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said on day two — two days done entirely on foot and by…
Day trips from Tunis
→Carthage by train, Dougga with a driver, Bizerte by train and Cap Bon by car — trips from Tunis ordered from the…
Where to stay in Tunis
→Tunis is rarely chosen for its hotels — it's chosen for how far the bed is from the medina or the train to Carthage.
What Tunis costs
→Tunis is one of the cheaper capitals on the Mediterranean — the biggest cost of the day isn't a ticket, it's where you…
The Tunis guidebooks skip
→Three places in the medina no hotel map marks: a palace that's still free to enter, seven centuries of trading in…
What to eat in Tunis
→Harissa on every table, a brik with a runny egg, lablabi in a bowl of torn bread and fish by the kilo on the coast…
The best time to visit Tunis
→Tunis has no beach as a reason to come, so the date is picked by the temperature you walk the medina in, not a swimming…
Getting around Tunis
→One bus from the airport, two feet through the centre and the medina, and one train for everything further out — Tunis…
Mistakes everyone makes in Tunis
→Five things that ruin a day in Tunis before anyone notices what happened — and what takes their place without losing…
What to see in Tunis
The medina
World Heritage since 1979, with seven hundred monuments in a maze walked without a map. Entry free, in through Bab el Bhar, aim for the Zitouna, out wherever you end up.
free
The Bardo Museum
The largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world, in a 19th-century bey's palace. Virgil with the muses, Odysseus and the sirens, a whole floor of Neptune's triumph. 3 h, closed Mondays, €8.90 for foreigners.
€8.90 · 3 h · closed Monday
A rooftop by the Zitouna
Shops around the mosque let you onto their roof terraces, on the understanding that you look at something but need not buy. The view of the minaret and the medina is the best in the city; go in the afternoon with the light from the west.
free
Avenue Habib Bourguiba
The boulevard of the French city with the cathedral, the art nouveau theatre and cafés under the trees. This is where you sit in the evening, because the medina is closed; coffee costs less than in the hotel.
free
Souk el Attarine and Souk el Berka
The perfume souk with flasks of essences blended to order, and the former slave market that is now the goldsmiths' souk. The two places in the medina where people actually buy rather than just look; closed Friday afternoons, partly.
free · closed Friday afternoons, partly
Tourbet el Bey
The 18th-century mausoleum of the Husseinite dynasty in the medina: eight domed burial chambers around two marble courtyards, reopened in 2023 after eleven years of restoration. The ticket is bought at the door.
Two things you probably did not know
Carthage, at the end of the suburban railway from central Tunis, was Rome's equal through three wars. The Romans levelled it in 146 BC and then rebuilt it a century later as a Roman city.
The Bardo Museum in Tunis holds the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world. It occupies a former bey's palace, so the mosaics sit under ceilings decorated in Ottoman style.
Ready for Tunis?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Tunis — day trips or weekends.
Tunisia
→Ten towns in a line, from the capital to the sand at Tozeur — in the order they're actually travelled, not listed
Egypt
→Two countries under one name: the Nile with its temples, which needs a plan, and the Red Sea, which needs only a charter — few people do both in one trip
Morocco
→The north by train, the south by road, and in July you leave Marrakech for the coast
Italy
→The cities on the high-speed line are an hour or two apart; the coast, Matera and the Tuscan hills lie off it
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Sidi Bou Said, Hammamet and Sousse
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Tunis if you have been.
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