Tunisia Tavel Tips

TUNISIA TRAVEL TIPS

Introduction : Hear the siren song that calls you to Tunisia. This hospitable land of colors and contrasts, spices and scents invites you to enjoy its natural beauty, ancient cities, lively festivals and warm friendliness of its people. Welcoming visitors to its shores has long been an honored Tunisian tradition and an impressive infrastructure of modern hotels, restaurants, international airports, tourism offices and information centers has been developped to add to our guests comfort and pleasure. In this land of the familiar and the exotic one can watch the sunrise over the Sahara, enjoy a gourmet meal at a seaside resort and top off the evening with a midnight swim in the pool of a modern comfortble hotel. Whether you prefer a long walk along miles of sparkling beaches, wind surfing the cool Mediterranean breezes, exploring ancient sites and legendary cities a game of golf or just a long lazy day relaxing on the warm golden sands, Tunisia has it all. Culture : An ideal climate, a long and gentle seacoast, Tunisia, the northernmost country of Africa has for over 3000 years witnessed the passage of Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Turks, Spanish and French. They came as fugitive s or adventurers, to conquer or to claim, warriors and missionaries, traders and farmers each leaving a part of their story in stone or mosaics, on hills of Carthage and the threshold of the Sahara. Top This heritage, Tunisia's greatest wealth has been held in trust and preserved in hundreds of sites and museums from the small Punic museum in Utica to the vast collections of the prestigious National Museum of Bardo. Most Museums are closed on Mondays, whereas many on-site archeological museums and ruins are open all week. An entrance fee is usually charged and a caretaker will often act as guide. Places : Whatever the season, your first glimpse of Tunisia will be one of golden beaches and a deep blue sea. With over 1200 kilometers of coast this sunny Mediterranean land is a paradise for the vacationer. Well known seaside resort areas - Sousse, Monastir, Hammamet and Nabeul, Djerba and Tabarka offer their visitors the finest sand beaches and crystalline water along with a dizzying choice of waterfront hotels featuring sun and sea sports as windsurfing and sailing, underwater sightseeing, fishing and short boat rides. Top Nearly Hotels are built with the visitor's comfort and enjoyment in mind and their restaurants feature both international as well as Tunisian Cuisine. During the peak summer season no effort is spared to provide the maximum of activities at the hotel and throughout the region .Summer festivals held nearby invite you join in with your Tunisian hosts to celebrate Father Neptune, share their local folklore, enjoy a concert or or just have fun. Feeling guilty about the long lazy days spent in delicious idleness bronzing on the beach? Often an hours drive from these modern resorts will bring you to another Tunisia, one of ancient Roman, Arab, Berber or Phoenician sites. Reminders of this rich historical past abound and visitors will return again and again captivated by the diversity of this Mediterranean land. Ask at your hotel for guided tours and information .The Tunisian Tourist offices in most European capitals or in all major cities in Tunisia can supply a list of Guides, maps, brochures, and advice to help you plan an unforgettable vacation. Top Sports : While Tunisia has a justified deserved reputation for beautiful beaches and sparkling clean seas, with the mild year round climate,this blessed land is also a heaven for the sports minded. Sea sports enjoyed during the summer can well be practiced for most of the year in southern resort areas. Sports such as golf, tennis, diving, hunting, riding, surfing, sailing, hiking and discovering the numerous sites, cities and museums are year round recreations. Where some sports are not available at your hotel, clubs with small entry fees furnish additional facilities. For the amateur, these clubs can provide lessons at a very reasonable cost and some will rent the necessary equipment. Cuisine : "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are" And what would our philosopher tell us about Tunisians ? Plain folk - for whom bread remains the staff of life. From the urban "baguette" to the unleavened country bread baked in a clay domed oven "tabouna" , each region boasts its specialty. Freshly baked bread is available throughout the day and no family meal is complete without it. Top Sophisticated gourmets - Tunisians' pride themselves on their fine taste buds. Indeed woe to the chef who forgets the touch of cumin in a grilled fish or the bay leaf in the mloukhia, a beef stew thickened with corète. Lamb is the basis of most meat dishes and purchased from one's family butcher after close examination and exhaustive questioning as to the region, season, breed and age. A favorite way to prepare young lamb is coucha - portions of shoulder meat are rubbed with a sauce of olive oil, salt, a sprig of mint, a touch of cayenne pepper and turmeric and baked in a slow oven in a tightly covered earthenware dish . A summer "dinner" may consist of home pressed olive oil, a few green olives, country bread, heavy and grainy and a salad of sliced scarlet radishes or plump tomatoes served with grilled fish. Pampered by miles of coast and a unpolluted and generous sea, seafood is a mainstay of the Tunisia diet. Without question, the blue ribbon goes to the Rouget -red mullet, a delicious fish either grilled or fried. The varieties of seafood from the imperial royal shrimp to the familiar and much appreciated sardine are endless and each region has its recipes and secrets for preparation. Jerba in particular is known for the excellence of these gifts of the sea. Tunisian meals are social events and the longer the better. A typical meal would begin with shorba frik- lamb soup with flavored with tomato paste, coriander, parsley and seasonings in which green spring wheat grains are slowly simmered, is served with slices of lemon. Brik, followed by Slata mechouia - grilled green peppers , tomatoes and garlic finely chopped .Spices and olive oil are added and the salad is garnished with tuna fish, hard eggs, olives and capers. Top Dinner will now begin. Assorted stews follow roasts of lamb, veal or fish, tajine - a rich, flavorsome omelet baked with chopped meat, vegetables and cheese. Fresh salad, fruits, pastries and custards, coffee and tea make the finale. Holidays are occasions for the preparation of traditional specialties and though there is some leeway given to the chef's creativity, the main ingredients vary little. On the Mouled, zgougou ,a sweet pudding of ground pine seeds , topped by a vanilla cream and decorated with grated nuts is served throughout Tunisia. The Aid El Fitr, a day marking the end of the Ramadan fast is celebrated by families visiting each other, bringing and receiving plates of pastries, homebaked or purchased with bakloua or makroudh as all time favorites. Aid El Kebir brings to the table a myriad of dishes prepared with lamb- cuminia,osbane, mechoui, lamb chops or cuts grilled over charcoal. Ras El Am, the Moslem New Year is greeted not with champagne but with mloukhia. Top While most Tunisians like their food hot and spicy, restaurants and hotels prepare their menus considering the tastes of their visitors and serve harissa separately. This condiment is made of crushed dried red peppers, garlic and spices and adds a definite zest to any meal. It is a mainstay of many dishes and can be toned down by a touch of olive oil. Many menus are also printed with English, German and French translations of the dishes. Sweet loving Tunisians have adopted the Turkish baklava - layers of whisper thin pastry interspersed with ground pine nuts, almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios, bathed in golden butter, baked and dipped in a honey syrup. No holiday, wedding, christening or dinner party could be considered without it. Other sweets, makroudh ,a specialty of Kairouan of semolina pastry stuffed with dates, caak, almond paste wrapped in fine dough ,as well as a myriad of regional specialties make up the traditional platter served for every joyous occasion. The vast almond orchards of Sfax supply the different types of almonds that are the basic ingredient of most sweets and cakes. Tunisian pastries are given as gifts for holidays and are well worth a trip to the nearest pastry shop. Top Shopping : Outside of the official, quality and price, controlled Artisanat (handicraft) shops, where everything from carpets to birdcages bears a price tag, and carpets a stamp of origin and caliber, shopping in Tunisia is definitely an art. Located in the old city (the Medina), the Souks offer a selection of objects of unsurpassed beauty and distinction , excellent arts and craft and traditional work. A sharp eye, nerves of steel, a show of disinterest and a good sense of humor will make shopping a real pleasure. Inflated prices give both parties the pleasure of bargaining and a golden opportunity to exhibit your talent as an actor. Start by cutting the offer in half, then work up to a compromise if you are really interested. The choice is yours: Handcarved olive wood: Salad bowls, kitchen articles, vases, lamps, bracelets...beautiful , solid wood , each is distinctively different. This hard and durable wood needs only an occasional slight rubbing with oil to bring out the richness of its patterns. A natural gift from this Mediterranean land. Top

FIND TUNISIA HOTELS ACCORDING TO DESTINATION

Tunis | Gammarth | Hammamet | Djerba | Sousse
La Marsa | Tozeur | Madhia | Port El Kantaoui | Monastir