A dappled art deco villa by the glittering sea built by a wealthy Romanian, later occupied by Rommel during the Germans' North Africa campaign in 1942. A disco trapped in a 1970s time-warp, playing Abba and Beatles. An early morning swim in a turquoise pool designed to look like a desert oasis. The archaeological site by the sea at Carthage, the ancient empire destroyed by the Romans - with signs warning tourists not to take pictures of the neighbouring presidential palace, and soldiers with casually slung guns backing up the message.
Snapshots of a holiday in Tunisia.
A troupe of dancing girls and pipers playing us through the lobby of a glamorous new hotel in Hammamet. Shepherds guarding dusty sheep on the Tunisian long acre. Markets in the walled medinas, eager traders waiting to pounce. Lunch on the lawn next to a Mediterranean beach in warm October sun. And in the brochures, tempting offers of a two-day safari to the Sahara where The English Patient was filmed, accompanied by pictures of Ralph Fiennes.
But who needs Ralph, with all these slender, attentive dark-eyed young men in the hotels, the taxis, the souks?
A trip to Tunisia was an unexpected surprise. Would it be North Africa Uncovered? Casablanca, 1990s-style? Just another anonymous hot high-rise place in the sun?
No, it was none of these, but a completely relaxing few days in an interestingly exotic country that is dedicated to developing mass tourism, but has held on to its dignity while creating large, clean and comfortable resorts. The hotel architecture is pastiche Arab/Andalusian, but it is gleaming white and attractively low-rise, because of enlightened regulations that insist hotels are no bigger than the nearest palm tree.
Is it hot? What's the food like? What did you buy? The culture may be fascinating, but it's not top priority for heat-starved northern Europeans.
First of all, and most importantly for Irish holidaymakers, Tunisia is hot. Too hot inland, by all accounts, in July and August, when temperatures can soar to well over 40s0]C, and to over 30s0]C on the coast. In offpeak months, like October and April, temperatures hover around 25s0]C. The weather can be changeable - in the days before our arrival, wind and rain had accompanied the hot weather. But hotels have indoor pools, and there are plenty of sights to see as an alternative to basking in the sun - not to mention offers of massages and Turkish baths.
The "hammam" - the Turkish bath - is traditional in the Arab world, and hotels, happily, build on this. Massages are cheap and some hotels have extensive spas, and treatments like "thallasotherapy" (mud baths to you) to restore withered bodies. The food is tasty, especially the titbits that are preambles to the main course of most meals: tasty veg wrapped in filo pastry, dips like the fiery harissa, and brik, a Tunisian speciality which is light and lovely even though it sounds unlikely - it's a kind of deep-fried pasty involving vegetables and an egg.
Fish is excellent, meat less wonderful, and reasonably-priced meals (set lunches, for example, around £10) presented with a flair and confidence inherited, perhaps, from the French, who ran Tunisia as a protectorate for a century or so up to 1956. It took several pitched battles with fishermen in a village like Hammamet before they accepted "protection", but in the end, French culture took root - French is the main language here after Arabic, although most Tunisians are linguists with enough English, German, French and God knows what other languages to deal with tourists. Asking what there is to buy is a whole other story, as shopping in a country where haggling over the price of goods is a way of life is a whole new experience for visitors who've never been to this part of the world before.
OUR TOUR guides had trained us for shopping in the souks of the Sousse medina as if preparing us for battle, with warnings to estimate the price of goods in the fixed price shop at its entrance before daring to bargain at the stalls and shops that line the narrow cobbled streets. Suffice to say that it's really more fun to watch this kind of shopping as a spectator sport, to enjoy the drama as a bargain is struck over delph or jewellery or T-shirts between your friend and a shopkeeper who would make Slobodan Milosevic look like a weak negotiator.
In the end, I opted for purchases in a fixed price shop in the marina at the resort of Port El Kantaoui, and was saved from buying dodgy 1960s-style kaftans for teenage children by an alert younger friend. Were the tote bags that cost only about £15 really "cuir de mouton"? Well, they smell like it, and I like them.
Best buy? The Princess Jasmine-style headdress for a child for about £6, perfect for the dress-up box.
Tunisia. It has sun, it has sandy Mediterranean beaches, sport - golf, scuba diving, bizarre resort favourites like banana boats (get towed at speed on a banana-shaped thingy), parascending (hang, crucifixionstyle, from a balloon in the sky) - it has cheapish food and wine, it has friendly people who, outside of the souks, seem genuinely interested in chatting to tourists. It has pretty splendid hotels at reasonable prices, and for when you get bored of lolling about, history.
What history! Although Tunisia has many fascinating Roman ruins, dating from the time when it was the capital of the Roman empire in Africa, it entered world history long before, when the Phoenicians established trading posts on the Barbary coast - named after the native Berbers - in about 1200 BC. This is cradle of civilisation stuff: Carthage was established in 814 BC, became a great world power and a rival to the Romans, until Hannibal's eventual defeat. Destroyed in 149 BC, all that now remains of Carthage is an archaeological site by the sea.
History leaps out casually, even in street names - on the way to the site is a street called Rue Septime Severe, after a Roman emperor. To see really stunning well-preserved Roman remains, you go to Dougga, the country's largest archaeological site.
The next 2,000 years of Tunisian history sees it locked in the conflicts of the Mediterranean world: the Arabs arrived in 670 AD, it became a pawn in wars between the Turks' Ottoman Empire and Spain, was a Spanish "protectorate" in the 16th century, a Turkish province until 1861 until the French moved in, and seized independence in 1956.
Today, it is a most liberal Islamic country where women in western dress mingle easily with veiled women, a country with progressive laws (universal education, female equality) despite being bordered by countries like Algeria and Libya. But it is decidedly not European in style: this foreign-ness - the souks, the muezzin calls to prayer, the shepherds by the side of the road, the strange building methods (houses are seldom finished, because owners add on to them every time someone gets married) - are of course all part of its attraction for visitors.
Kitschy tourist entertainments like the Bedouin feast - belly dancing girls, men balancing Aladdin pots on their heads, couscous and raucous craic - are fun, but don't tell you much about an important part of Tunisia, the nomadic Bedouin people. Still nomadic - they travel to harvest olive crops, for example - they are now being "settled" for their's children's education, according to our incredibly well-informed guide Hadi. A short trip served only to whet the appetite, not just for sun and fun, but to explore the country further.