The area around Sidi Bou Saïd was settled in ancient times. There are fragments of some Punic flooring here, suggesting that there were villas there even in the third century BCE. It’s located amid what remains of Carthage, a great metropolis before it was destroyed by Rome in 146 BCE. The town was established in the 13th century, but the buildings that stand here today generally date back only to the 19th and 20th centuries. The main street winds up a hill to a cliff from which I looked out across the Bay of Tunis all the way to Cap Bon. It’s a well-scrubbed town, clean and well-kept. I tend to like a little more grit and decay, but there’s no denying Sidi Bou’s charms.

After touring the Dar El Annabi, I went walking around the town. In 1912, an eccentric French painter and musicologist, Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger, built an enormous Moorish villa in town and then compelled the town to adopt a by-law mandating that all houses be painted blue and white. The result is either charming or a bit de trop, depending on one’s point of view. The town presents dozens of picture-perfect scenes, but it’s also a tourist trap where the souk sells the same t-shirts and mass-produced ceramics that can be bought elsewhere in Tunisia. Even so, Sidi Bou is well worth the trip.

On Sunday, I traveled by taxi, train, bus, and light rail trolley to Sidi Bou Saïd, a pretty town nestled on the coast amid the few remnant ruins of Carthage. This trip was not about ancient archaeology, but about the artists and writers who visited or stayed and, for a time, made Sidi Bou Saïd famous among the continental intelligentsia. Paul Klee, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Andre Gide, Flaubert, and Cervantes all made their way there.

Almost as soon as I arrived, I toured the Dar El Annabi, a traditional Tunisian house originally owned by a local mufti. Some of its 55 rooms are still occupied by the mufti’s grandson, a cardiologist. It’s a fascinating look at Tunisian design and artistic sensibilities. These pictures were all taken inside his house.

And for those wondering where Sidi Bou Saïd is, I was here:

After exploring El Jem’s Roman amphitheater and the town that surrounds it, we went to the archaeological museum. Roman mosaics excavated nearby constitute 95% of its exhibits. That single-mindedness works, since what the museum lacks in breadth it more than makes up for in breadth. Again I was struck by how long these pieces have endured and wondered what of our own culture will be exhibited two thousand years from now.

In the second century CE, Tunisia was part of the African breadbasket of the Roman Empire. El Jem, in this pre-Arab world, was called Thysdrus and was something of a vacation spot for merchants who had gotten rich from the olive oil trade. As the wealthy are wont to do, they compelled the government to erect grand public works that would bring fame and prestige to their town. And so a Roman amphitheater with an audience capacity of between 30,000 and 43,000 was constructed in what even then was a small town, making it the Foxboro Stadium of its day. According to The Rough Guide to Tunisia, it is now “the single most impressive Roman monument in Africa.”

The tallest building in today’s El Jem is two stories tall. It’s therefore a jolt to walk around a corner and see the monumental ruins of the amphitheater. It makes me wonder whether any of the grand structures we build today will still be around in 1,800 years.

The amphitheater is still used for concerts and other performances, most notably the summertime International Festival of Symphonic Music. The festival recently closed for the season, but I hope to return for a concert next year; the amphitheater would be a spectacular place for an evening concert. The ruins have also been used as a location for various movies, including Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

My traveling companions were AMIDEAST’s fixer extraordinaire, Malek, and his friend Amine. The three of us paid our admission fee (as Tunisian nationals, they paid only 8 dinars while I had to pay 10) and began to explore.

The guidebooks I’ve consulted agree that the El Jem amphitheater is better preserved than the Colosseum in Rome. Not having been to Rome, except to change planes, I wouldn’t know. But it was amazing to see the hundreds of interior stone arches that are precisely fitted, as opposed to mortared, together.

According to local legend, the amphitheater was where Kahina, a Berber queen, led an heroic last stand against the Arab invaders in the seventh century. The structure was damaged again by war in the seventeenth century. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Below is some of the oldest graffiti I saw carved into the ruins. I searched for obscene Roman scrawls (maybe something like “Lavinia futui vult in asino”), but in vain.

There are tunnels running under the complex where wild animals were kept in cages, which could then be hoisted up to the stage so that the crowds could enjoy the spectacle of watching them tear each other (or hapless people) apart. The wildlife present now is considerably tamer.

I took advantage of a day off to go to El Jem, a town about an hour south of Sousse by train. The main attraction there is a very well preserved Roman amphitheater from the third century BCE. But the surprise for me was the town around the ruins, a small settlement with nice cafes and antique shops. It looked like this:

I was here: