Things to see and do Tunis

Unfortunately closed since July 2021, the Bardo Museum remains the most important archaeological museum in the Maghreb. Created in 1882 in one of the pavilions of the beylical palace, it was then part of a set of buildings constructed by the Hafsides. Made sadly famous after the attacks of March 18, 2015, the museum is located at the exit of the city to Beja and Bizerte, next to the university campus. The objects it houses are divided into four departments grouping collections belonging to an era of the country's history: Carthaginian, Punic, Christian and Arab-Muslim. A fifth department is devoted to Greek bronze and marble objects from the underwater excavations of Mahdia. The Bardo Museum is renowned for housing the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world from Carthage, Sousse, Dougga or El Jem. Some of the works on display are unique, such as the mosaic "known as Virgil". These pieces are a valuable source for research on daily life in Roman Africa. From the same Roman period, the museum also has a rich collection of marble statues representing the deities and Roman emperors. Among the beautiful pieces not to be missed: the grimacing masks, the terracotta statues or the steles of the Libyan-Punic period; the Greek works discovered in the excavations of the Mahdia ship, with the marble bust of Aphrodite and finally the blue Koran of Kairouan in the Islamic department.

A website dedicated to Greater Tunis, whose vocation is not particularly tourist, but still identifies the major points of interest of the city.

Vibrant heart of the medina, the Great Mosque, accessible from the street Jamâa-ez-Zitouna, which also bears the name of Mosque of the Olive Tree (ez-Zitouna), has a classico-Roman look with its arcades and columns with capitals not very Moorish. The largest mosque in Tunis was first built in 698, when the city was founded, by the Umayyad governor Obeid Allah ibn Al-Habhab, then rebuilt entirely from 856 to 863 by the Aghlabid emir Abu Ibrahim and, thereafter, regularly reworked. It is still very much alive and continues to provide religious instruction and to gather the faithful for the five daily prayers. Its architecture presents certain analogies with the mosque of Kairouan. The hypostyle room, the prayer room, with 15 naves, has no less than 184 columns and ancient capitals, probably from the ruins of Carthage. The monument has undergone many transformations over time. The contribution of the Turks was materialized by the addition of a gallery on three sides of the court (in 1653) and the rise of a new minaret which was replaced in 1834 by a tower of 44 m, with the decoration inspired by the Hispano-Moorish minaret of the mosque of the Kasbah. The Ez-Zitouna mosque housed for centuries the prestigious university that bears its name. Its roof and its prayer room have undergone numerous restoration works since independence. The beautiful porch of the National Library can be seen next to it.

The Chammakhi brothers decided one day to revive the family home. It was the first to open its doors to the public, a sort of free living museum. The family, of Djerbian and Berber origin, settled in the medina at the end of the 15th century. Just a stone's throw from the Great Mosque, the land was tiny. It was unthinkable to build an Arabo-Andalusian building with a patio, etc. So they erected an elaborate house, high up on five levels. The house is now converted into a boutique-museum... where everything is for sale!

The medina of Tunis is rich in history... and stories. It is an opportunity to travel back in time through a maze of alleys, between light and shadow. The pleasures of the labyrinth, the happiness of the souks, everything is there. Once past the Gate of France (1848), a vestige of the Hafsid enclosure that enclosed the medina, you enter the historic heart of Tunis, listed by UNESCO as a cultural heritage of humanity. Ancient city, founded thirteen centuries ago by the conquerors of the Byzantine Carthage, the medina is ordered around a great spiritual center, the great Ez-Zitouna mosque. Two arteries start from the door: the street of the Kasbah and the street Jamaa-Ez-Zitouna, both very animated, lined with very picturesque shops. There is everything according to the districts..

The surroundings of the mosque were reserved for the so-called "noble" crafts, while the more polluting trades, forges and tanneries, were confined to the periphery. Today still, quality craftsmen, gathered by corporations, perpetuate this tradition. Originally, the Great Mosque was the politico-religious center where commercial agreements and transactions were also negotiated. Very soon, it lost its secular role and acquired a more and more pronounced sacred character. Its fame as a center of teaching of legal sciences and religious thought attracted, in addition to Tunisian students, many students from the interior of the country and from abroad (Maghreb and Africa). To these students, the medersas offered free accommodation. Relayed today by the modern zeïtounienne university, it continues to dispense a religious teaching and to gather the faithful for the prayer. It is in the morning that the animation is the most lively. Dreamers will find all the charms of the Orient in these souks overflowing with fabrics, carpets, jewelry, leather bags and copper trays. Behind anonymous facades, the aesthetes will discover the splendor of the palaces with walls decorated with superb ceramics and immense domes of finely chiseled stucco. The merchants of the souks still attract passers-by as they did travelers in the Middle Ages. They always offer the most varied goods of Tunisian crafts and trade. One discusses, one haggles, but one is not obliged to buy, even at the end of the longest palavers. Always be kind when someone insists... A small smile and a polite refusal accompanied by an "aichek" (thank you) will touch the seller who will not insist any longer.

The main artery of Tunis. It crosses the whole city center starting from the Place du 14-Janvier and extending to the medina via the Place de l'Indépendance and the Avenue de France. On these Tunisian Champs-Élysées, luxury hotels and 19th century buildings with their heterogeneous architecture rub shoulders. The animation is in full swing around the cinemas, shops, newsstands and cafes. It is on this avenue that took place the great demonstrations of the revolution of January 14, 2011, including near the French embassy.

The former Place du 7 Novembre was renamed Place du 14 Janvier 2011 following the Jasmine Revolution and the fall of President Ben Ali.

The fountain,

in the evening, is illuminated with lights of all colors making the water dance on music projected by speakers around the square, bringing together many Tunisians. Since its renovation, the clock of the square is a strange mix between an Egyptian obelisk and the clock of the Gare de Lyon in Paris. The tower is made of openwork metal, its golden spire is gleaming, and in the evening, the electricity flows through the steel lace that rises towards the starry vault. The fountain, at its foot, silent during the day, becomes musical as soon as the night falls. One of the lively districts of the city is located south of Habib-Bourguiba Avenue, around Farhat-Hached Avenue and Barcelona Square. Small restaurants display French dishes, the atmosphere becomes feverish near the market near the place of Barcelona, the cafes are crowded.

At the height of the IndependenceSquare

, between the French Embassy and the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Cathedral, a neo-Roman building built in 1882, stands the bronze statue of Ibn Khaldun. Behind the cathedral, the rue de Rome leads to the Place de la Monnaie where the museum of the same name is located. You can continue along Avenue Habib-Thameur to Place de la République, where the pleasant Thameur Garden is located, and where Avenue de la Liberté begins, leading to the Lafayette and Belvédère districts.

The shoppingdistrict

is located on the left side of Habib-Bourguiba Avenue, when you go up towards the medina. On Khaldun Street, take a look at the Tunisian Culture House, which offers many exhibitions. This building, which formerly housed the Alliance française, has a beautiful mosaic in its center. The cinemas are numerous.

If you take Farhat-Hachedstreet

on the right, you will arrive at Barcelona square and Mongi-Bali square where the train station is located. In the center of the square stands the statue of Mongi Bali, the founder of the scouts in Tunisia. From there, you can continue by the street Abden-Wasseur, on the right, inhabited by many small shops: newspapers, photos, shoes ...

On

the

left, at the end of the street of Spain, a pedestrian street and very commercial, stands the central market. Semi-covered, open every morning except Sunday, it enchants by its smells, its colors and its animation on the background of Arabic music.

Located on a hill north of the city center, this green space of a hundred hectares dominates the city. It is a pleasure to walk in this beautiful green site, in these alleys planted with various species, often Mediterranean: ficus, olive trees, eucalyptus... There is also a health course and a small zoo. Appreciated by the Tunisians, the park is ideal to escape the heat of Tunis and to have a drink in one of the cafes that border the lake. At the end of an alley, a small pavilion, the koubba, a place of relaxation and meditation pleasant.

The (very beautiful and well-preserved) Catholic Saint-Vincent-de-Paul cathedral, in Romanesque-Byzantine style, is close to the Place de l'Indépendance. It is named after the founder of the Lazarists and the Daughters of Charity who was sold as a slave in Tunis at the beginning of the 17th century while still a young priest. Built in several phases between 1893 and 1897, it was renovated in the late 1990s. The building hosted a visit by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

Located at the corner of the Rue des Libraires and the souk El Karachine and close to the Great Mosque, this medersa was founded in 1754, also by Ali Pasha, who gave it the name of his son Suleimane, murdered by one of his brothers. It is distinguished by a very interesting porch, supported by Ottoman-style columns and topped by a cornice of green tiles. In the courtyard, whose entrance is decorated with earthenware tiles, there is a beautiful colonnaded gallery. This medersa is today occupied by a medical association.

This is the central market of the city, which is also called "Fondouk al Ghalla", which literally means "fruit inn". This is where you will find everything that can be eaten in a market, in terms of fruits and vegetables, but also fish. The central market is particularly lively in the morning. So, trust your senses, sight and smell in mind, and stroll among the stalls to get an idea of the flavor of the Tunisian capital!

This mausoleum is devoted to the husseinites sovereigns who succeeded from Ali Pasha II in the th century. Surmounted by domes, the rooms in this vast building have a rich Spanish-Italian decor. They house the tombs of the princes, but also their ministers and servants who they did not want to separate into death. One of the rooms is characterized by an egg-shaped dome. The tombs of men with a tombstone surmounted by a turban or tarbouch (rounded round cap) are recognised, while those of women have a stone on each side of a marble plate.

This splendid residence was built at the end of the 16th century by the wealthy Othman Dey, who wanted a quiet place to live in peace, and occupied it until his death in 1610. Dar Othman has a facade with marble columns, a patio surrounded by porticoes with two-colored pointed arches and Moorish-style colonnades. Both sober and magnificent, the decoration borrows the most beautiful materials (marble, ceramics) without being ostentatious. An interior garden replaced the paving of the courtyard in 1936. The site is unfortunately not always open.

This late 18th century building houses the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions. The various collections are highlighted in this beautiful family home, very nicely furnished. Its common areas and apartments are harmoniously decorated and chosen according to their use. A reconstruction of the daily life of a well-to-do family of the 19th century, in its setting and its customs. The museum is, since March 2009, closed for restoration work. Ask about the date of reopening.

It is a vast bourgeois mansion, built in 1796 by Dar Ben Abdallah. It exhibits, in a reconstituted decor, many jewellery, toys, traditional costumes and antique furniture.