Visit the 9th Century Bassins des Aghlabides - part of the city's original water supply system - and the Zaouia Sidi Sahab - a shrine to one of Mohammed's companions.
Visit the Grande Mosquee de Sidi Oqba, North Africa's oldest and most important mosque built in 7th century. Interior has world's oldest mimbar (pulpit) from 9th century.After excellent lunch we drive round the city walls and are taken to a carpet shop - presumably the guide is on commission. Sales technique is the same the world over. First you see a carpet being made with the individual knots being tied in place (funnily enough the woman doing this had vanished from the frame when we emerged from the salesroom). Then you go through into the sales room and are served a glass of mint tea. Then they start to roll out the carpets in front of you. One after another after another after another. Each more fabulous and expensive than the last. Bizarrely, thinner carpets are more prized in Tunisia. Thicker ones, that appeal more to us from the frozen north, are less valuable. The only escape is to stand up and walk out, which we did, after Kathryn showed way too much interest and looked set for the duration.
After an hour we finally get away and drive to El Jem. We pass through miles of olive groves (though Nick managed to miss these somehow). The amphitheatre, better preserved than the Colosseum in Rome, could hold 35,000.
We returned via Monastir where we were taken to the mausoleum of Habib Bourgiba, the first president of Tunisia after independence in 1956. There's something uncomfortable about this hero worship a la Lenin/Mao etc but the small collection of personal artefacts yields an amusing insight. His passport and identity card give his profession as "President of the Republic of Tunisia". Whatever qualms we have about his dictatorial style, he maintained a secular rather than Islamic constitution and instituted reforms to improve womens' rights. "He abolished polygamy and so we all now have monotony."
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