Our final couple of days in Tunisia were spent back in Tunis. We were really just returning because it's the major hub for international travel in and out of the country, but we had a surprisingly good and memorable time.
Part of it was getting to visit bits of the city that we hadn't seen before. The market district south and east of the Medina was lively and full of fun looking and delicious products. On one evening when I popped in looking for some olives and fruit I met a lemon vendor who was also a professional photographer and he even had me pose for a few shots behind his stand!
Another memorable spot was the suburb of Sidi Bou Said. Partly memorable because of how pretty it was, painted all blue and white, covered in Bougainvillea and perched high up on the clifftops above the gulf of Tunis. Also partly memorable because once we eventually stumbled onto the main street it was jam packed with visitors (this despite the fact that one of its prime attractions is to sit and drink a coffee and admire the views at the [all closed for Ramadan] cafes).
But really the best thing about our return to Tunis was spending more time with Kais, the Airbnb host we'd stayed with our first time through. He and his girlfriend are just lovely people. We shared their Iftar meal with them every night, and on one very memorable evening we headed out after to a cafe in the Medina. Normally the Tunis Medina is pretty quiet after dark, but during Ramadan a few hours after the Iftar meal it's just heaving. We sat at a table with our tea/coffee, platters of Tubisian sweets and pastries and spent a grand couple of hours people watching and playing Ludo (very popular in Tunisia) on Kais' phone.
Nice as all this was, we did miss being able to patronize the ubiquitous and very nice outdoor cafés. And it was a minor hassle to go into hiding to eat lunch (in Tunis there were eateries open during Ramadan, but they all had their doors shut and windows papered over or obscured with soap.
Plus we were departing not by air, as we'd arrived, but by boat across the Mediterranean! So we there were both carrots and sticks as we took the commuter train to the port to board our ferry to Italy. It was easy enough to find the terminal, but a bit confusing once we got there. It seemed like they weren't really used to foreigners who didn't have vehicles using the ferries. We sat around for an hour until the gates opened for us to go through security. But instead of following the rest of the crowd who showed their ID and walked straight on we were directed downstairs to the vehicle loading lanes. We were warmly greeted by the immigration officers who sat us down and chatted with us (and a lone Japanese tourist) for half an hour or so while we waited for… something or other to happen. Then we had our passports stamped by someone in a vehicle lane, went back upstairs, had someone check out the stamps and x-ray our bags, only to be sent back downstairs to board the boat where, after careful scrutiny of our passports and ticket info we were finally allowed aboard.
The ship looked a lot like the NZ inter-island ferries with the exception that it was bigger and that most of the passenger space took the form of cabins. Us cheapos had booked simple "deck passage," which effectively meant that we spent the eleven hour overnight journey sitting (layer laying, there was plenty of room) in the restaurant area. We watched a couple episodes of the silly but fun BBC TV show Come Dine With me before falling asleep on the very comfy padded bench seats.
We woke up at sunrise with land in sight, only an hour or so before docking in Sicily, returning to Europe after our second wonderful visit to North Africa in a short couple of months.
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