In the morning we made our way by louage to Sousse. It’s a pretty frequent route. The louage station there is huge – a cavernous warehouse. Outside, we grabbed a cab to take us to the old city. We suspect it was a bit of a circuitous route, but we got there. We stayed in the beautiful Hotel Medina, just inside the walls of the medina. This was the nicest hotel we stayed – it was very recently redone and modern. The only hiccup was that the radiator was leaking on the floor. But given our experiences in other hotels, the radiator is hardly worth a mention! Off-peak, the rate was very reasonable. I really enjoyed Sousse’s medina. It’s pretty big, it’s got a good atmosphere with a nice mix of stuff for the locals, and stuff for the tourists. We visited a few shops selling locally made handicrafts / modern art (nice stuff). We explored some side streets that went up a big hill with a nice view over the ocean (with cafe’s where you can stop and get a view). There were some “fixed-price” tourist shops, with absolutely ZERO hassle and almost every souvenir we’d seen elsewhere. Prices were perhaps a little higher then could be haggled, but for us, being able to take our time looking at everything was worth that extra price.

We stopped at a great Italian Pizza place, way down the far end of Rue el-Maar (or was it Rue el-Hajira by then). (my wife is vegetarian, and that proved quite challenging in Tunisia – pizza was always welcome). We got some exceptionally tasty baked goods at a local price (we had been gouged with tourist prices elsewhere). We tried some olives (you can only pass so many olive trees on the road before developing a serious craving!).