Attraction
Bardo National Museum
Tunisia's oldest and most important museum, set in a former beylical palace and home to one of the world's great collections of Roman mosaics.
There are plenty of things to do in Tunis, a capital that packs three thousand years of history into a compact area on the Gulf of Tunis. At its heart is the medina, the walled old city founded in 698 around the Zitouna Mosque and listed by UNESCO, where covered souks, palaces and mausoleums sit behind plain walls. Beside it, the Ville Nouvelle of the French protectorate years is built around Avenue Habib Bourguiba, with its cathedral, Art Nouveau theatre and street cafés. West of the centre, the Bardo National Museum holds one of the world's great collections of Roman mosaics.
The TGM suburban train links the city to the sea at La Goulette, the ruins of Carthage, the blue and white village of Sidi Bou Said and the beaches of La Marsa, while the hotels of Gammarth line the coast further north. Food ranges from palace restaurants in the medina to seafood by the sea. Allow at least three days: one for the medina and Avenue Habib Bourguiba, one for the Bardo, and one for Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, with more time for the beach or day trips to Dougga and Kairouan.
Attraction
Tunisia's oldest and most important museum, set in a former beylical palace and home to one of the world's great collections of Roman mosaics.
Attraction
The walled old city of Tunis, founded in 698 around the Zitouna Mosque and listed by UNESCO, with around 700 monuments, souks and palaces.
Attraction
The great mosque at the heart of the Tunis medina, founded around 698 and rebuilt in the ninth century, once one of the Islamic world's leading…
Attraction
The seafront ruins of the largest Roman baths in Africa, built between 145 and 162 AD and the most dramatic surviving monument of ancient Carthage.
Attraction
A whitewashed clifftop village above the Gulf of Tunis, famous for its blue doors, old cafés and links with painters and writers.
Attraction
The eighteenth-century mausoleum of the Husainid beys in the southern medina, the largest funerary monument in Tunis, reopened in 2023 after restoration.
Café
Founded in the early seventeenth century and considered the oldest coffee house in Tunisia, a medina café with columns, benches and tea with pine nuts.
Café
A cultural café and restaurant near the Zitouna Mosque with a covered courtyard, a reading room and a roof terrace looking over the medina.
Café
A terraced café on the cliffside of Sidi Bou Said facing the sea, built around the tomb of a local saint and famous for its views…
Café
The historic café at the top of Sidi Bou Said's main street, once the entrance to the saint's mausoleum, known for mint tea with pine nuts.
Hotel
A beachfront luxury hotel at Cap Gammarth on the Gulf of Tunis, with sea-view suites, a hammam spa, an outdoor pool and several restaurants and bars.
Hotel
A beach resort on the Côtes de Carthage with a 4,000 square metre thalasso spa inspired by Roman baths and a nearby 18-hole championship golf course.
Hotel
A ten-suite boutique hotel on the Byrsa hill in Carthage, where every suite faces the bay, with a spa, pool terrace, bar and market-led restaurant.
Hotel
A boutique guesthouse in two restored medina houses with fifteen individually designed rooms, run as a social enterprise that reinvests in the old city.
Hotel
A white Art Nouveau landmark on Avenue de Paris, built in the 1910s and renovated in 2010, with a long list of famous guests and a…
Bar
The Art Nouveau municipal theatre on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, opened in 1902, staging opera, ballet, symphonic concerts and drama for 1,350 spectators.
Bar
The cocktail bar of La Marsa's long-running Le Golfe restaurant, with drinks by mixologist Pierre Marquet and a terrace facing the sea.
Bar
Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger's palace in Sidi Bou Said, home since 1991 to the Centre of Arab and Mediterranean Music and a regular venue for concerts.
Restaurant
A long-established restaurant in an eighteenth-century medina mansion near the Kasbah, serving classic Tunisian dishes in a candlelit tiled courtyard.
Restaurant
A La Marsa seafood institution since 1955, with a sea-view terrace, seasonal Mediterranean cooking and a place on MENA's 50 Best Restaurants list.
Restaurant
A restaurant and craft gallery in a restored merchants' inn in the perfume souk, serving Tunisian dishes under a covered arcaded courtyard.
Restaurant
A traditional Tunisian restaurant in a centuries-old medina house near the Kasbah, known for generous lunches and dishes such as black couscous.
Restaurant
The restaurant of the Villa Didon hotel on Carthage's Byrsa hill, cooking market produce over open flame in a dining room facing the bay.
Restaurant
The Tunisian restaurant of The Residence Tunis resort, serving spiced Tunisian dishes, mint tea and shisha in a setting inspired by a traditional home.
Thing to do
A walk through the covered market streets around the Zitouna Mosque, from the thirteenth-century perfume souk to lanes of craftsmen and textile sellers.
Thing to do
The tree-lined main boulevard of modern Tunis, 1.5 km long, lined with cafés and colonial-era buildings between the lake and the medina gate.
Thing to do
Tunis's large hillside park, planted in the 1890s, with a zoo, a seventeenth-century pavilion with city views, a lake and the modern art museum at its…
Thing to do
The sandy beach and seafront of La Marsa at the end of the TGM line, a relaxed residential suburb with cafés, restaurants and old palaces.
Tour operator
Guided walks through the medina's monuments and souks led on request by historian Jamila Binous, plus guided visits to the Bardo, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said.
Tour operator
Medina walks, market shopping, cooking sessions and calligraphy organised by a social-enterprise guesthouse that reinvests in the old city.
Tour operator
Guided four- or six-hour tours of the medina and Bardo or Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, plus boat trips and dives, arranged by the Four Seasons…
Three days covers the medina, the Bardo Museum, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said; add more for the beach or day trips to Dougga and Kairouan.
Stay in the medina for character and walking access to the souks, in the Ville Nouvelle for convenience, or in Sidi Bou Said, Carthage, La Marsa or Gammarth for the sea.
Tunis-Carthage Airport is a short taxi ride from the city centre and from the coastal suburbs; many hotels also arrange transfers.
Compared with most Mediterranean capitals it is good value, especially for food, cafés and transport, although upmarket coastal restaurants and resorts cost more.
Most visits are trouble-free; take normal care with valuables in crowded souks, dress modestly in the medina and check your government's travel advice before you go.