Things to do in Sousse

Sousse is the Sahel's main town and its port. The medina behind the seafront is walled and World Heritage listed. Inside it the ribat and the Great Mosque stand almost side by side.

Inside the walls

The ribat is a ninth-century fortified monastery, built to watch the sea. Its tower served as lookout and minaret at once. The climb is short.

• The Great Mosque — from around 850, plain and fortress-like, with a courtyard open to visitors.
• The kasbah museum — Roman mosaics second only to the Bardo's, laid out in the old citadel.
• The catacombs — kilometres of Christian burial galleries, dug out and mapped in the early twentieth century.
• The covered souks — running inland from the seaward gate, busiest in the morning.
• Port El Kantaoui — the marina resort built north of the town in the 1970s.

The Sahel around it

Three places matter within an hour. Monastir has a ribat of its own and Bourguiba's mausoleum under gold domes. Mahdia keeps a working fishing port and a narrow old town on a cape.

El Jem lies inland, about an hour by road. Its amphitheatre seated roughly thirty-five thousand and stands near its full height. Very little was ever quarried away, which is why it reads whole.

What leaves from here

Sousse sells the desert rather than the coast. Two days is the short version; four to eight covers the oases and the ksour. Transfers, camps and meals sit inside the price.

Prices spread widely. Two days costs about what a couple of hotel nights do. The eight-day circuits run several times that.

Practical

• Season. May to October for the sea, with July and August the hottest and the busiest. April and November suit the medina and El Jem.
• Airports. Monastir is twenty kilometres south, Enfidha about fifty north. Both are roughly half an hour by taxi.
• Getting around. Taxis inside town are cheap and metered. Louages leave for Tunis, Kairouan and Sfax when they fill.
• Medina. Open all week and busiest mid-morning. The seaward gate is the simplest way in and out.
• El Jem. Go early, before the coaches and the heat. There is no shade in the arena.
• Mosque access. The Great Mosque courtyard admits non-Muslims; the prayer hall does not. Shoulders and knees covered.
• Crowds. Ordinary care in the busy souk lanes, and nothing worse than that.
• Money. Cash for the souk and the medina cafes. Draw only what you will spend, since dinars cannot leave the country.