Walking Tunis: Medina to the Coast
No car, no taxi meter to argue over, just three walking routes that cover almost everything worth seeing in and around the capital.
The Medina of Tunis Historical Heritage Walk enters through Bab el Bhar (Porte de France) and runs about 3 miles through narrow, covered stone alleyways. Inside, the Ez-Zitouna Mosque opens onto a vast marble courtyard ringed by antique Roman columns, reused from Carthage when the mosque was built in the 8th century. In Souq des Chechias, master chaouachi craftsmen still block, comb with wild teasel thistles, and dye wool felt into the scarlet red chéchia skullcaps sold across the market. Further in, Tourbet el-Bey holds the 18th-century mausoleum of the Husainid dynasty, ornate Italian marble tombs under green-tiled domes, and Dar Lasram, a 19th-century aristocratic mansion, shows off Andalusian tiled reception rooms and inner courtyards.
The Sidi Bou Said Architectural and Artists Stroll is a shorter, roughly 2-hour route starting from the TGM station and climbing the hill. The draw here is the carved wooden doors, studded with black iron nails in patterns that mean something specific: the Hand of Fatima (Khamsa) for protection, fish for good luck, crescent moons for a third motif entirely. The route ends at the terrace of Café des Délices, looking straight out over the Gulf of Tunis.
Down in the modern city, the Ville Nouvelle French Colonial Stroll follows Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the broad, ficus-shaded boulevard nicknamed the Champs-Élysées of Tunis, past the Art Nouveau and Neo-Moorish Théâtre Municipal de Tunis from 1902 and the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul from 1897.
Dress for the medina and the mosque matters here specifically: shoulders and knees should be covered when walking through the Medina or entering Ez-Zitouna, and it is worth carrying a lightweight scarf if you plan to step inside any active prayer precinct. Cash is also mandatory in the souqs; card machines are not standard at the small stalls, and Tunisia’s dinar cannot be bought outside the country, so withdraw what you expect to spend from an ATM before you set out for the day.
Verdict: walk the medina route in the morning, when the souks are open but the stone alleys have not yet trapped the day’s heat, and save Sidi Bou Said for late afternoon, when the light off the Gulf makes the whitewashed walls and blue doors look their best.
One concrete tip: keep your scarf accessible in a bag pocket rather than packed away, since you will want it on hand the moment you reach Ez-Zitouna’s courtyard, not five minutes later after digging through a bag at the gate.
For the sights this same route passes without stopping at, see the attraction tours guide .