"Tunisia" a Tunisia Travel Page by traveldave

The history of Tunisia is a history of empire and conquest. From about the eighth century B.C. through the second century B.C., Tunisia was the center of the Carthaginian Empire. At the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C., the city of Carthage was sacked by the Romans and Tunisia became the center of Roman North Africa. After the fall of Rome in 433 A.D., there were periods of occupation by the Vandals, and then the Byzantines, until the Muslim Arab conquest in 647 A.D. After a succession of Arab dynasties, the Ottoman Turks took over the country in the sixteenth century. The French made Tunisia a colony in 1881, and ruled until 1956 when Habib Bourguiba led the country to independence.

Tunisia is wedged between its two larger neighbors of Algeria and Libya. It is a relatively small country, but contains a wide variety of landscapes and climate zones. In the north a series of mountain ranges dominates the countryside. They are a part of the Atlas Mountains that start in Morocco, pass through Algeria, and end in Tunisia. Oak and pine forests, brush and grassland, vineyards, orchards, and fertile agricultural land are a surprising feature of the north. (I mistakenly believed most of the country was arid). Tunisia's south is part of the Sahara Desert, with vast areas of sand dunes, salt flats, rocky plains, and oases. In between the lush mountains of the north and deserts of the south are arid savannas, dry steppes, rolling hills, and extensive olive groves.

I traveled to Tunisia on a birdwatching trip, and our itinerary took us from the fertile north, through the miles of olive groves in the center of the country, to the sands of the Sahara Desert in the south. Although finding birds was our priority, we did take the time to see some of the interesting attractions in Tunisia, including the ruins of Carthage, Lake Ichkeul National Park, the Roman colisseum of El Jemm, Bouhedma National Park, the troglodytes of Matmatma, the sand dunes of the Great Eastern Erg, the salt flats of Chott el-Djerid, and the oasis towns of Douz and Tozeur.

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