Tunis
The last day of our vacation my husband and I spent in Carthage. I am sure everyone remembers the phrase “Carthago delenda est!“ (Carthage must be destroyed!) from their school classes of history. The Roman senator Cato the Elder ended with it every one of his speeches regardless of whether he had been speaking about Carthage. Without diving too deep into the details, I only mention here that Carthage was one of the largest cities of the Punic Empire which covered the whole of the Western Mediterranean for centuries. Carthage was Rome’s equal and its greatest rival. With the three Punic Wars (264-146 BCE), Carthage lost more and more of its territory until the Roman army conquered it and destroyed. If the Carthaginians had won the Wars instead of the Romans, the whole course of history would have been different. The Romans went with the plow through the entire area but then they found that they were unable to leave it and rebuilt it again.
Today, Carthage is a suburb of Tunis and it is easy to reach by train. The ticket to the archaeological complex is valid for all 8 sites. We visited 7 of them, walking from one site to another and somehow missing the last one, Magon Quarter.
Carthage was an impressive historic site to visit. My husband who is a physicist during this trip quite unexpectedly to me turned into a lyricist. For every day of our vacation, he wrote a short poem that described the place where we were that day. Here is what he penned about Carthage:
“The Ancient Carthage was wealthy and strong
But it was sacked and destroyed by Rome.
That was Carthage’s pitiful fate
Rome became the world’s strongest state.”
Back to Tunis, we walked from the train station past a pizzeria that was open during the Ramadan. It was a small place with 4 tables, thick cigarette smoke and oven fumes filled the air inside making it difficult to breathe. We ordered a takeout pizza and brought it to our hotel room. The pizza was excellent, we ate it with gusto and finished up all other food leftovers from the previous day. Next morning, we were flying home.