Travel Guide Le Kef

Le Kef occupies the site of an ancient city called Sicca Veneria (its Arabic name is Chakbanaria). The word "Veneria" would come from a temple dedicated to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, identified by the Romans with Venus and where some women named "the Punic matrons" came to practice prostitution. Prosperous in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the city became, ironically, the seat of a bishopric. Le Kef was for a long time the third city of Tunisia and knew the French occupation in 1881. Today it is an important administrative center. Le Kef is built on a mountainside, it is the highest city in Tunisia with its 627 m. of altitude from where it enjoys a superb panorama, with on one side the forests of pines and cork oaks and on the other side hills. The city is famous for the quality of its water and its pure air. The city cascades down the mountainside with the white domes of the Sidi Boumakhlouf mosque watching over the medina. Walking through the streets and staircases, we discover vestiges of antiquity scattered throughout the old city.At the entrance to the city, a signpost announces Casablanca at 2,055 kilometers. The explanation? A young Tunisian went on a trip to Morocco one day and found a woman he brought back to his country. To show her that his city was not so far away, he planted, for love, this sign at the gates of Kef. The sign remained!