Tunis

there is something wrong with the men in this country. a horrible place for women. some dirty smelly guy offered my father 70 camels or something like that in exchange for me! a cab driver harassed my mother and that was pretty scary. even though we stayed in a holiday resort, my stomach couldn’t handle the food. the only safe thing to eat was the cheese pizza!
oh and there is some kind of stench wherever you go in tunis which wasn’t that easy to get used to.
also you have to bargain for anything you buy. the final sale will always be at least a quarter of the original price! the only good thing, besides witnessing a desert rain, was that we brought back lots of exotic home decor items which cost almost nothing.

Just through the Sea Gate (also known as the Bab el Bahr and the Porte de France), begins the modern city, or Ville Nouvelle, transversed by the grand Avenue Bourguiba (considered by many to be the Tunisian Champs-Élysées), where the colonial-era buildings provide a clear contrast to smaller older structures. As the capital city of the country Tunis is the center of Tunisian commercial activity, as well as focus of political and administrative life in the country. The expansion of the Tunisian economy in the last decades is reflected in the booming development of the outer city where one can see clearly the social challenges brought about by rapid modernization in Tunisia.        

The French occupied the city from 1881 to 1956 having established a protectorate system of administration that recognized the nominal authority of local government. During World War II, Tunis was held by Axis forces from November 1942 to May 1943, and was their last base in Africa.        

we were there for only one day but that was enough for me
i expected something new (it was my first time in africa) + a bit of french flair but all i’ve got was one of the most cumbersome walks ever – through the bazar in the medina – i think there are hundreds .. no .. thousands of vendors who bother you all the way up to the big mosque we wanted to visit – but there arrived – they prevented us from walking in – we had no tunisian dinar – only euro – bad luck ..
maybe the city is elsewhere quite nice, but our trip isn’t worth doing it again -

i loved tunisia, it was my first experience in north africa. i haven’t been able to find any mint tea quite like it.