Tunis

We tour around Tunis today.

We started the day with breakfast at 7:30 am, which came too early getting to bed at 1 am last night. Then an 8:30 welcome meeting for our tour.

We then boarded a bus for a short drive over to Avenue Habib Bourguiba named after the first President of Tunisia after independence from France.

We passed by the Hotel du Lac which closed in 2002 and is now derelict. It was the inspiration for the sandcrawlers in Star Wars. The desert scenes in Star Wars were filmed in Tunisa.

There is a statue of Ibn Khaldun at the other end of the avenue in front of the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul which was built by the French when North Africa was a French colony.

Visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Tunis Medina. This is the oldest part of the city and is now mostly devoted to a market place. There are markets for fish, meats, fruits and vegetables, clothing, tourist items, gold, etc. We saw many of them, and had a break in a cafe in the markets.

We bought some dates from this shop.

We came across numerous street cats as we walked around today. Some had found bowls of food set out for them. Others were begging cafe customers. They were on the small size, about 5 pounds.

Tunisia has a traditional hat that is a little different than the Fez, being shorter and less rigid. It’s called the Chechia hat.

Al-Zaytuna Mosque has been a university since about 700 AD. The first president of Tunisia Habib Bourguiba created a modern education system in the late 1950’s and the university associated with the mosque closed. Tunisians claim that this is the first opened university.

There may have been a church dedicted to St. Olivia on the site of Al Zaytuna before the mosque was built. It’s rumored that this door remains from that church.

We had lunch at the markets. We tried a brik l’ouef, avec frommage which is potato, a little bit of tuna, egg, parsley wrapped in a thin dough and deep fried.

After coming back to the hotel, the group took a trip to a local grocery store to see what it’s like for locals to shop. We got some Tunisian wine. It’s a little odd for a Muslim country to have a wine industry, but the French started it and it’s continued. Turkey also has a wine industry.

It was interesting to see the variety and large size of the cooking oil section. There was corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil and vegetable oil. I’m guessing deep fried foods are popular.