Blogs from El Jem, Tunisia, Africa

No matter how many photographs you look at of El Jem, and no matter how many words of "helpfulling travelling very" advices you read, El Jem will only ever have one decent thing in it; a dobbing huge massive Roman sports stadium. The ruins are flipping immense. With Ancient Roman built environment back drops such as El Jem it's no surprises that movie directors working on a tight budget loved filming their epics in Tunisia. The Pythons, for example, fimed much of "The Life of Brian" in country. With a lick of paint and a few canvas sheets it's possible to turn Tunisia into an ancient Rome, a spaghetti west or a warring futuristic satellite planet - and still have change leftover to buy a bag of chip shop scratchings on the way home. In 1984 ... read more

Pendant des kilomètres et des kilomètres, nous longeons des oliveraies. Il y en a à perte de vue et ils sont plantés a une bonne distance les uns des autres, car leurs racines sont très longues et vont chercher l'eau assez loin. Toujours dans le but d'empêcher la désertification, on a planté des cactus le long et perpendiculairement à la route pour empêcher le sable d'envahir les terres. Certains sont en fleurs et d'autres sont aussi hauts que des arbres. Nous nous rendons à El Jem, où nous aurons un grand coup de coeur pour son immense colisée pouvant contenir 45 000 spectateurs. Nous l'avons visité sous toutes ses coutures, de la fosse aux lions au haut des gradins. Les escaliers sont abruptes et dangereux. On a intérêt à être prudents et les gens qui ont ... read more

A Roman bathhouse (still in use) a Roman amphitheatre (where Monty Python's been filming) and the remains of a Roman city (not in use) Douriet In the previous blog entry from Tunisia I wrote about a few Berber villages I visited. Douriet is another such village. Like the other villages, Douriet is today mostly in ruins. Sfax Sfax is a large city on the Tunisian east coast. The mighty city walls are still today protecting the old town of Sfax with its medina, the shopping quarters. Well, "protecting" perhaps is not the word the locals would use. The walls are probably more of a problem than a protection today. There are gates in the wall of course. The largest of these is named Bab Diwan. El Jem One of the highlights of th... read more