Photo: Skander zarrad (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Culture and heritage · Tunisia
El Jem and Kairouan
One of the largest amphitheatres of the Roman world, then the first Islamic city of the Maghreb. A day trip from Sousse or Hammamet.
Sousse and Monastir · Tunisia
The experience
The amphitheatre of El Jem rises in the middle of a small town on the plain: a 3rd-century Roman arena that held about 35,000 spectators, on the UNESCO list since 1979. You climb its tiers, walk the passages beneath the arena and visit the nearby mosaic museum.
You then drive to Kairouan, founded by Uqba ibn Nafi in 670, the first Islamic city of the Maghreb and on the UNESCO list since 1988. Its Great Mosque, the Mosque of Uqba, has a vast courtyard, a square minaret among the oldest standing, and a prayer hall on marble columns taken from Roman sites.
You also visit the zawiya of Sidi Sahbi with its tiles and the Aghlabid basins, round 9th-century reservoirs, and taste makroudh in the souks of the medina.
It is about an hour from Sousse to El Jem and about an hour and a half from El Jem to Kairouan, so we start in the morning.
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