# Tunis: map, what to do and when to go

Tunis brings together the medina, the French Ville Nouvelle, and, across a shallow lagoon, the coast of Carthage, Sidi Bou Saïd, and La Marsa. The TGM, which departs from Tunis Marine, takes 20 minutes to Carthage and 30 to 40 to La Marsa.

Canonical: https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/
Language: en. Extended author commentary and itinerary notes may remain in Portuguese. Dates below belong to individual sources; this is not live availability.

## Direct answer
- **Tunis: Should I accept the taxi's flat rate?** No: the yellow taxi is required to use the meter, and a driver who says the meter's broken, or who proposes a "forfait," is charging double.
- **Tunis: How much does a taxi from the airport to downtown cost?** The yellow taxi to Avenue Habib Bourguiba costs 10 to 15 DT on the meter during the day and about 50% more between 9pm and 5am, which is legal and shows on the display.
- **Tunis: How far is Dougga?** Dougga is 110 km southwest, about 2 hours by car via Medjez el-Bab and Téboursouk.

## The medina, from Bab el Bhar to the Kasbah
Enter at 9am through the Bab el Bhar, at Place de la Victoire, and go up Rue Jamaa Ezzitouna to the courtyard of the Zitouna Mosque, founded in 698 or 703: only the courtyard is open to non-Muslims, during reduced hours.
- The medina and the Zitouna
- Souk el Attarine and the Souk des Chéchias
- Tourbet el Bey
- Dar Ben Abdallah
- Avenue Habib Bourguiba

## Bardo in the morning, Carthage in the afternoon
Arrive at the Bardo National Museum at opening and set aside two hours for the Roman mosaics, the portrait of Virgil and the cargo of the Mahdia shipwreck; take light metro line 4 or the RFR's line D, and remember it's closed Mondays.
- Bardo National Museum
- Carthage archaeological site
- Acropolium of Carthage
- Sidi Bou Saïd and Ennejma Ezzahra

## Bab Souika, Belvédère and the lakeside
Start at the Bab Souika square, with a coffee on the sidewalk, and see the Sidi Mahrez mosque, from 1692-1697, the only one with Ottoman domes in the city.
- Sidi Mahrez mosque

## The medina and the Zitouna
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-medina
Tunes · Half a day or more
The Great Mosque of the Olive Tree was founded in 698 or 703 and rebuilt in 864 by the Aghlabids, with about 160 ancient columns taken from the ruins of Carthage and the surrounding region. It served as a university until 1956 and trained Maliki jurists for a thousand years; non-Muslims only enter the ablutions courtyard, during reduced hours and never near the Friday noon prayer.
Check access

## Souk el Attarine and the Souk des Chéchias
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-souk-el-attarine
Tunes
The perfumers' souk opened in 1240 under Abu Zakariya and still sells essences by the drop from heavy glass bottles. The Souk des Chéchias, with its covered arcade and wooden benches, is the seat of the chaouachine guild, which has made the red felt cap since the 17th century: knitted wool, milled in a water mill, dyed and brushed with teasel. Ask to see the wooden mold before settling on a price.
Check access

## Tourbet el Bey
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-tourbet-el-bey
Tunes · Up to half an hour
Mausoleum of the Husainid dynasty built under the reign of Ali Pasha II, between 1758 and 1782, in the south of the medina. It holds over a hundred graves under green domes, with Carrara marble and ceramic tilework; the men's headstones bear a chechia carved in stone, and the size of the turban marks the rank of the deceased.
Check access

## Dar Ben Abdallah
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-dar-ben-abdallah
Tunes · Up to half an hour
18th-century urban palace around a marble courtyard, now the Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions. The rooms have been refitted with 19th-century furniture, costumes and jewelry and explain how a medina house worked: four wings in a cross, no window onto the street, and all the luxury turned inward.
Check access

## Sidi Mahrez mosque
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-mesquita-sidi-mahrez
Tunes · Up to half an hour
Built between 1692 and 1697 by Mohamed Bey el Mouradi, it's the only mosque in Tunis with cascading Ottoman domes, copied from Istanbul and completely outside the Maghrebi hypostyle-hall pattern. It sits in Bab Souika and is dedicated to the city's patron saint, who died in 1022.
Check access

## Bardo National Museum
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-museu-nacional-do-bardo
Le Bardo
Set in a 19th-century beylical palace, opened in 1888 and reopened to the public on September 14, 2023 after more than two years closed. It holds the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world, including the 3rd-century portrait of Virgil between two muses, and the cargo of the 1st-century BC Mahdia shipwreck. Closed Mondays.
Check access

## Carthage archaeological site
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-sitio-arqueologico-de-cartago
Cartago (município)
The archaeological site of Carthage brings together nine areas spread over about 5 km, on UNESCO's list since 1979: the Baths of Antoninus, from 145–162, by the sea; the Punic ports, one circular and one rectangular; the Salammbô tophet, with its votive stelae; the Punic quarter of Byrsa; the Roman theater used for the Carthage Festival; and the La Malga cisterns, fed by a 132-km aqueduct from Zaghouan. The combined ticket covers all of them, but it's valid only on the day of purchase.
Check access

## Acropolium of Carthage
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-acropolium-de-cartago
Cartago (município) · Up to half an hour
The former Cathedral of Saint Louis, now called the Acropolium, was built between 1884 and 1890 on top of Byrsa, in a neo-Byzantine-Moorish style, on the spot where Louis IX died in 1270. It stopped being a church after independence and now serves as a concert hall and a viewpoint over the gulf.
Check access

## Sidi Bou Saïd and Ennejma Ezzahra
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-sidi-bou-said
delegation of Carthage
Village on a cliff 130 m above the sea, with the blue and white imposed by decree in 1915 under the influence of Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger. His palace, Ennejma Ezzahra, was built between 1912 and 1922 and houses the Center for Arab and Mediterranean Music, with the instrument collection that served as the basis for the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music.
Check access

## Avenue Habib Bourguiba
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/tunis/#g-lugar-avenue-habib-bourguiba
Tunes · Up to half an hour
A 1.3 km central promenade lined with ficus trees, between the Porte de France, rebuilt in 1848, and the clock at Place du 14 Janvier 2011. Along it stand the 1897 Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul, the statue of Ibn Khaldun, born in Tunis in 1332, the 1902 art nouveau Théâtre municipal, the 1891 Marché Central a street over, and the Ministry of the Interior, guarded by railings, where photography is forbidden.
Check access

**Tunis: Should I accept the taxi's flat rate?**
No: the yellow taxi is required to use the meter, and a driver who says the meter's broken, or who proposes a "forfait," is charging double.

**Tunis: How much does a taxi from the airport to downtown cost?**
The yellow taxi to Avenue Habib Bourguiba costs 10 to 15 DT on the meter during the day and about 50% more between 9pm and 5am, which is legal and shows on the display.

**Tunis: How far is Dougga?**
Dougga is 110 km southwest, about 2 hours by car via Medjez el-Bab and Téboursouk.

**Tunis: What's the currency, and how much is the dinar worth?**
The currency is the Tunisian dinar (TND, DT), divided into 1,000 millimes, trading at around 3.0 DT to the dollar and 0.55 DT to the real in 2026.

**Tunis: What's the best time to visit?**
The good window is from April to early June and from mid-September to early November, with highs of 22 to 28 °C, the sea still usable in October, and little rain.


## In the Nilo app
- Plan these 2 days on the map: https://nilopelomundo.com/en/app/guide/tunis/?utm_source=llm&utm_medium=markdown&utm_content=door-itinerary
- Mark your hotel on the map: https://nilopelomundo.com/en/app/map/tunis/?utm_source=llm&utm_medium=markdown&utm_content=door-stay

## Full editorial guide (Portuguese)
https://nilopelomundo.com/llm/tunis.md