Day 1: Arrive Tunis — The Bardo Museum & Medina
Arrive at Tunis-Carthage International Airport. Private transfer to your hotel. Afternoon: visit the Bardo Museum — housed in a former Bey’s palace, this is one of the world’s great archaeological museums. The Roman mosaic collection is unparalleled: the Triumph of Neptune, Virgil between Clio and Melpomene, the 50-square-meter pavement from the Villa of the Months, and the haunting stele of the priest carrying a child from Carthage’s Tophet. The museum sets the historical context for everything you will see over the next 7 days. Evening: orientation walk in Tunis’s UNESCO-listed Medina — Africa’s best-preserved medieval Islamic city. Narrow alleys, the Zitouna Mosque (exterior), and the colorful souks. Welcome dinner with Tunisian specialties. Overnight Tunis.
Day 2: Carthage — Rome’s Greatest Rival
Full day exploring Carthage — the city that produced Hannibal and challenged Rome for Mediterranean supremacy. Morning: Byrsa Hill, the acropolis where Phoenician princess Dido founded Carthage in 814 BC. Visit the Carthage Museum with Punic artifacts and climb to the viewpoint over the Gulf of Tunis. Walk through the Punic quarter excavations — the remains of Hannibal’s city buried under Roman rubble. The Antonine Baths — the largest Roman bathing complex outside Rome, built in the 2nd century AD on the Mediterranean shore. The remaining columns tower 15 meters; the underground heating system (hypocaust) is still visible. The Tophet sanctuary — the controversial Punic burial ground with thousands of stone stelae marking the cremation urns of children and animals. Visit the Punic ports — the circular military harbor that held 220 warships and the rectangular commercial port. Afternoon: the Roman Villas district — wealthy patrician houses with intact mosaic floors. The Roman Theatre — restored and still used for summer performances. End at the American Cemetery — 2,841 white crosses marking the World War II North Africa campaign fallen, the Mediterranean glinting beyond. Overnight Tunis.
Day 3: Dougga — The Best-Preserved Roman Town in North Africa (200 km)
Morning drive through Tunisia’s agricultural heartland — olive groves stretching to every horizon. Arrive at Dougga (ancient Thugga) — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and arguably the best-preserved Roman small town in North Africa. Perched on a hillside overlooking the fertile Oued Khalled valley, Dougga’s size and state of preservation are astonishing. Walk the main street past the perfectly preserved Theatre (3,500 seats, still used for summer performances) to the Capitol — the temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva with its magnificent portico of six fluted columns, the most photographed Roman monument in Tunisia. Continue to the Square of the Winds with its compass rose mosaic, the House of Dionysus with its floor mosaic of Dionysus riding a chariot pulled by tigers, the Libyco-Punic Mausoleum (the only surviving Numidian royal tomb, 2nd century BC), the Temple of Saturn, and the 12-seat public latrines with their marble seats. Dougga feels like a Roman Pompeii — wandering its stone streets among intact temples, theaters, homes, and markets, you can almost hear the echoes of the 5,000 people who lived here. Lunch in the nearby village of Teboursouk. Return to Tunis for dinner. Overnight Tunis.
Day 4: Sbeitla — The Three Temples & Kairouan (320 km)
Morning drive south to Sbeitla (ancient Sufetula). This Roman city is famous for one of the most remarkable sights in the Roman world: the Capitol — not a single temple but three nearly identical temples standing side by side, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. This unique arrangement is found nowhere else in the Roman Empire. Explore the vast forum paved with stone slabs, the triumphal arch of Diocletian, the well-preserved public baths, the olive press district (Sbeitla was an olive oil production center), and the early Christian baptistery with its beautiful mosaic floor. The site is vast, quiet, and hauntingly beautiful — olive trees growing among 1,800-year-old columns. Continue to Kairouan — Islam’s fourth holiest city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visit the Great Mosque of Uqba Bin Nafi — its forest of ancient columns scavenged from Roman and Byzantine sites, massive courtyard, and the oldest standing minaret in the Islamic world. See the Aghlabid Basins — 9th-century water reservoirs. Evening: taste Kairouan’s famous Makroudh pastries and explore the carpet workshops. Overnight Kairouan.
Day 5: El Jem — Africa’s Colosseum & Sousse (200 km)
Morning drive to El Jem (ancient Thysdrus) — home to the most spectacular Roman monument in Africa. The El Jem Amphitheatre rises from the flat Tunisian plains with the sudden force of a mirage — the third-largest Roman arena ever built and the best-preserved in Africa. Built around 238 AD and seating 35,000 spectators, its elliptical arena measures 65 by 39 meters — larger than many modern sports stadiums. Walk the arena floor where gladiators fought to the death. Climb the upper tiers for views across the plains — on the topmost level, you can see the Mediterranean 50 kilometers away. Explore the underground chambers (hypogeum) — two levels of corridors, holding cells for animals and prisoners, and the elevator system that raised them dramatically into the arena. The adjacent Mosaic Museum displays extraordinary Roman floor mosaics recovered from local villas. Continue to Sousse — a UNESCO-listed coastal city. Visit Sousse’s Archaeological Museum, housed in the 9th-century kasbah, with magnificent mosaics including the famous “Triumph of Bacchus.” Explore the Catacombs of Sousse (Catacombs of the Good Shepherd) — 5 kilometers of underground Christian burial galleries from the 3rd-5th centuries. Evening: Sousse’s Medina at sunset. Overnight Sousse.
Day 6: Thuburbo Majus & Zaghouan — The Water of Carthage (250 km)
Morning: visit Thuburbo Majus — one of Tunisia’s most atmospheric Roman sites, a town that prospered from 27 BC to the 7th century AD. Walk the forum surrounded by the ruins of the Capitol temple, the Temple of Mercury with its octagonal plan, and the Temple of Peace. Thuburbo Majus is famous for its mosaics — many now in the Bardo Museum, but the site itself still reveals fragments of floor decoration, and the standing columns of the palestra (exercise ground) and baths create a hauntingly beautiful scene with wildflowers growing among ancient stones. Continue to Zaghouan — a charming town beneath the Djebel Zaghouan mountain where a Roman spring still gushes crystal-clear water. Visit the Water Temple (Temple des Eaux) — a nymphaeum built by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD to commemorate the source of the Zaghouan Aqueduct. This magnificent aqueduct carried water 132 kilometers to Carthage — one of the longest Roman aqueducts ever built, with surviving sections of arches marching across the landscape. Afternoon: drive through the beautiful Cap Bon countryside back to Tunis. Overnight Tunis.
Day 7: Tunis Medina & Departure
Morning: final exploration of Tunis — the Ottoman-era Tourbet El Bey (royal mausoleum), the Dar Ben Abdallah Museum of Popular Arts in an 18th-century palace, and last-minute souk shopping for silver Berber jewelry, leather goods, ceramics, and Tunisian olive oil. Transfer to Tunis-Carthage International Airport. Depart after walking through 2,000 years of Roman Africa — from Carthage’s Punic wars to El Jem’s gladiatorial games, from Dougga’s hilltop temples to the aqueduct that sustained an empire.
