History buff here!! My first thought, though, when I saw Tunis on the itinerary was: What? Why? Until my DH gently told me (insert ton of bricks here): Carthage, dummy. Oh. Ok.....I get it! At which time I started googling all sorts of things about Carthage and was way psyched to go there!
Well, that heat thing had pretty well shot any idea of us taking DD into Tunis with us. We talked to the tour desk and asked if we could cancel her excursion (went with
DCL on this one...) and explained that the heat wasn't sitting well. They actually let us do that, and did not charge us. We were willing to just eat the cost (wasn't much...only like $40, maybe...), but were pleased that DCL was willing to work with us. I think had it been all of us it would have been an entirely different scenario.
We met in the WD Theater at 0915 (because I kept my stubs......!!!!) and were given a piece of paper ( a Tunis Visitors Embarking Card..said that on the Navigator
) that the Tunisian government would stamp instead of stamping our passport. Something to do with hostile nations, etc, etc....We started off by going to Carthage. Our tour guide was of French-Tunisan heritage and spoke very clear English. He told us a bit about the education in his country, and while they first learn Arabic, they move on to French, English, and then a language of choice (usually spanish or italian). All citizens can go to college and have it paid for, but their performance (grades) determined what college they would attend. Interesting...and do note that this information was current at that time; since the revolution last spring...who knows! And...in all the questions that were asked of him, in no way did we ever get any impression that there was any turmoil in that country.
The port was not attractive, and I didn't get any pics of the stinkin' camels they had there to "greet us". Carthage, however, was amazing:
An amphitheater with modern-day usage:
Aquaducts:
And then off to Sidi Bou Said:
Which, while pretty, looked a bit run-down and the "market" was crazy expensive. I don't like to haggle. And a lot of the stuff was cheaply made. uck. Could have done without seeing this town. However, you never know when you're going to have a great interaction with a local! DH found a little market (after avoiding some guy stalking us...) and got some cokes:
In paying the lady (who spoke no English), he pulled out a handful of change (Euros) and she got excited when he handed her a coin that had been made in Malta. Apparently, each country, though they all use Euros interchangeably, produce their own currency. She pulled out a box and started showing DH coins that had different countries on one side of them! Very cool!
This, I thought, was just funny:
Amen? I have money in my bank, amen!
We went back to the port after this, and though DH and I were glad to have seen some amazing ruins, we were happy to be back "home". While walking thru the port building, another creepy thing happened...some guy was trying to record all the people as we walked by. Very, very strange and as someone who's never been in such a situation, unnerving. Glad I went, not going back.
DD stayed in the kids club most of the day. We'd lifted her "lockdown" so that when Clifffside and family came back from their Tunis adventure they could take DD to see a movie with them. It worked well.
All abord time was 3:45 ship time (which was different that the time we were at, I guess), and as I have a Palo card scrapbooked in the Tunis section, we must have gone to Palo that night! But I don't think I took my camera as I have NO pictures of it! However, I do have a towel animal: