Tunis & Carthage

Tunis keeps three cities within tram distance of each other: a medina with seven hundred listed monuments folded into its lanes — the Zitouna mosque at the heart, souks sorted by trade around it —; a French ville nouvelle of wrought-iron balconies and café terraces down the avenue; and, across the lagoon, what remains of Carthage, the empire that made Rome sweat for a century, its broken columns now neighboring villas and a light-rail stop. History here is a commute.

The sensible traveller walks the medina in the morning — roof terraces for the view, the perfume souk for the memory —; takes a brik and harissa lunch without fear of the egg; rides the TGM across the causeway to Carthage's scattered sites, the Antonine baths grandest by the sea; and finishes up the cliff in Sidi Bou Said, where every door is a study in blue and the café at the top has been serving pine-nut tea to the view for a century.

The Guide's honesty: Carthage is scattered, not gathered — pick three sites and walk between them rather than chasing all twelve —; the medina's bargaining is softer than Marrakech's but still a sport: smile and counter; Friday reshapes the rhythm around the mosques; and the little TGM train is the honest way east — buy the cheap ticket, sit by the window, and let the lagoon do the narrating.