Hiya. My names Rich im 21 and from Yorkshire. I spend my time playing sport or travelling
Hiya. My names Rich im 21 and from Yorkshire. I spend my time playing sport or travelling
Member since:29.04.2004
Reviews:9
One of the best things about Tunisia as a destination is that it can be reached by a number of airpots such as Glasgow, Gatwick and Manchester and from the northen ones it is around a 3 and a half hour flight to Monastir (where you fly for Sousse and most middling cities). It is also a bilingual country with most people speaking both Arabic and French.
When we had decided on Tunisia it was a matter of selecting what we wanted from our holiday because Tunisia has alot to offer many different people.
There are the busy resorts of Hammamet and Souse or even Sfax. There are the historical sites
to see such as El Jem, Dougga or Carthage and there is even the option of going for a short city break to Tunis. You can venture into southern tunisia and even the Sahara if you fancy but we decided we wanted to have a nice relaxing time in some exceptional comfort so we chose Port El Kantaoui.
Kantoui is about a 40 minute transfer from Monastir airpot which is no major trauma after such a short flight. The first thing i noticed about the resort is that it was especially clean and green for such a warm and somewhat arid country. This always makes a good impression on me.
The beaches in Kantaoui were fabulous and the weather at this time of year was fantastic. In regard to beach activities they were fabulously cheap. For example paragliding was 15 dinars per person and use of windsurfing equiptment was in the region of 8-10 dinars for an hour. Most of the locals in and around Kantaoui also spoke reasonable English.
We were staying at the Imperial Marhaba which is a 5 starhotel on a B&B basis. It was a nice hotel with plenty going on and was on its own stretch of the beach. Very nice. It is situated around 1.5 miles from the centre of the resort but has a supermarket and some shops and fast food restaurants about a 2 minute walk away at the top of the road and a taxi rank outside.
Just a quick note about taxis. If you are visiting anywhere using taxis please make sure they turn their meter on because they love to set a fee and leave the meter off. This is nearly always a higher fee than necessery. To get from where we were to the centre of Kantaoui it was 2 dinars which is around 90p. To get to Sousse from Kantaoui it is 6 dinars regardless of what they try and charge. Tunisia has a fixed currency market which they keep around 2.2 dinars to the pound. This also means that it is hard to obtain any currency before you arrive and that it is illegal to take any back home with you. Places to change currency are readily available but we prefered to use ATM's.
Kantaoui is a great base for heading further into Tunisia. It was a 2 hour bus ride to Carthage and Tunis and a 45 min ride to El Jem so it was very suitably situated. A note on historical interests. Carthage for me was a must despite there being very little there so just be aware that it is not particularly well preserved. Better sites are the colosseum at El Jem or Dougga. The Bardo museum in Tunis was incredible and i would not hesitate to go again. The other key site in the religious city of Kairouan. All of these are easily within reach.
Kantaoui has a medina and is reasonably busy on a night time and is frequented by both locals and foreigners. We found that most restaurants that are reasonably priced are very limited in what they offer. The only thing that really annoyed me in Kantaoui was the treatment of my girlfriend. Samantha is a lovely looking Greek girl and always dresses very respectfully when wer're on holiday so that noone can be upset by her attire. In the medina almost eveyone stared right at her chest, bum, legs or directly into her face for long periods of time and then tended to make unsuitable comments that i found particularly offensive. This happened to most of the women that we talked to and i found it unreasonable and extremely rude. This only happened in Kantaoui in the medina and not anywhere else we went not even in Tunis or Sousse.
All that aside I actually prefered Sousse as a place to go on a night but that may be because i love to get stuck into the souks and have a good bartering session. The medina in Port El Kantaoui has plenty of shops and the prices are better than you will start with in the bigger cities so if you hate to haggle maybe better to stay there. One interesting thing we found was that the best place to get almost everything you wanted hassle free was from the supermarkets' shops. The prices were better than the Soulla centre and government appointed shops. You can pick up some bargains in the souks but i would recommend picking up a firm base of what the shops charge before venturing into the souk because they do start the prices ridiculously high. A common sculpture we bought for 12 dinars and it was 15 in the supermarket but they started at 80 so just beware.
In summary. Food,stuff and holiday = cheap foreigners and locals in medina = leery People in general = very friendly
ohh yeah and make sure you ask for some Harrisa and flatbread in a restaurant! Its great!
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