Welcome to Tunis, the capital and largest city of Tunisia, spread along the Gulf of Tunis behind its lake and the port of La Goulette. At its core lies the Medina, a World Heritage Site. Step through the Sea Gate, also called the Porte de France, and you enter the modern Ville Nouvelle, crossed by the grand Avenue Habib Bourguiba, often nicknamed the Tunisian Champs-Élysées, where colonial-era buildings contrast with older, smaller structures. Further east by the sea lie Carthage, La Marsa and Sidi Bou Said. Our tour will take us from ancient ruins to whitewashed villages.
Medina of Tunis
Photo: IssamBarhoumi · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsWelcome to the Medina of Tunis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. It was founded in 698 around the Zitouna Mosque and grew throughout the Middle Ages. Its main street ran from the mosque west to the seat of government in the kasbah, and east to the Sea Gate. It was under the Hafsids that the Medina took on its essential form, as Tunis became a religious, intellectual and economic centre. As you wander, you are surrounded by some 700 monuments: palaces, mosques, mausoleums, madrasas and fountains from many periods.
Bardo National Museum
Photo: Céline Rabaud · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsStep into the Bardo National Museum, housed since 1888 in an old palace of the beys. It is one of the most important museums in the Mediterranean and the second largest in Africa. The treasure here is underfoot and on the walls: one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics in the world, including the famous Virgil Mosaic, a major source on everyday life in Roman Africa. Look out too for the marble bust of Aphrodite recovered from the shipwreck of Mahdia, its surface gnawed by the sea. In 2015 the museum was the scene of a terrorist attack that killed 22 people.
Carthage
Photo: ELEL09 , montage · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsNow we reach Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis, once one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. Legend says it was founded by Queen Dido from Tyre. She was told she could have as much land as an oxhide could cover, so she cut the hide into strips and laid out the city's perimeter. Carthage grew into the capital of a Punic empire, until the Roman Republic destroyed it in 146 BC after a siege of nearly three years. Rebuilt a century later, it became the major Roman city of the province of Africa. The ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Sidi Bou Said
Photo: Mohamed Moslem Mosbah · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAbout 20 kilometres north-east of Tunis, the village of Sidi Bou Said dazzles in blue and white. It takes its name from a holy man, Abu Said al-Baji, who founded a sanctuary here and was buried at the site after his death in 1231. Later, wealthy citizens built residences on the hill. The famous colour scheme was popularised in the 1920s by Rodolphe d'Erlanger, whose former home is now a museum of musical instruments that hosts concerts. In 2026 UNESCO named the village a World Heritage Site for its architectural harmony and coastal character.
Al-Zaytuna Mosque
Photo: T A · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAt the very centre of the Medina stands Al-Zaytuna Mosque, the mosque of the olive, the oldest in Tunis. It was founded around the turn of the 8th century, but its present form largely comes from a 9th-century rebuilding. Look at the columns around you: many are antique pieces reused from Carthage. The mosque grew into a place of higher learning and, from around the 13th century, it was the most important educational institution in Tunisia. Great scholars taught here, as did the celebrated poet Aboul-Qacem Echebbi.
Cathedral of Saint Vincent de Paul
Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsOn Place de l'Indépendance, where Avenue Habib Bourguiba meets Avenue de France, rises the Cathedral of Saint Vincent de Paul, dedicated to the patron saint of charity. Its design blends Moorish revival, Gothic revival and Neo-Byzantine styles. It opened on Christmas Day 1897, but without its bell towers, because money had run short. The towers followed only in 1910, built in reinforced concrete. It replaced an earlier church nearby that deteriorated quickly because of poor ground, and it remains the seat of the Archdiocese of Tunis.
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