Northern Tunisia

Yesterday we set off on another day long trip to discover Tunisia. This time we loaded into our minibus and headed north to visit Utica, Bizerte, and Ichkeul. Our first stop was at Utica.


Utica was once the first colony of the Phoenicians and a critical port town. Today, all that remains are ruins. The coastline has receded 15km as the nearby Medjerda River has caused the bay to fill in with sediment. At its prime, Utica was the capital of the Roman Province of Africa Nova. After the second Punic War Utica alligned itself with Rome instead of with Carthage (traitors), they were rewarded greatly for this after the third Punic War when they were named the capital of Rome's new African Province. Emperor Augustus switched the capital to Carthage after it was rebuilt but Utica remained a popular town. It was destroyed by the Arabs in 700 AD.


The ruins at Utica didn't impress me as much as the Dougga ruins, but there were some things I enjoyed. One was the beautiful mosaics, several of which still remained on the floors of buildings. Our guide brought with him a spray bottle of water. When we were shown mosaics, he spritzed the tiles with water so we could see the tiles shine. I was really impressed by some of the vivid colors that they used. It's not often that you see such brilliant turquoise in ancient mosaics.


The other interesting part of Utica was that our guide allowed us to look at some very recent excavations. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but we were allowed to take a peek. Even though the sea can't be seen from Utica of today, taking a look at these ruins proved that this town had once been right up on the edge of the water. The ruins were filled with sand and salty puddles and littered with chunks of three thousand year old coral.

Our next stop was lunch in Bizerte. We didn't really get to explore the town, we just had our lunch and headed to the port. Our walk through the port was quick-- less than 10 minutes I'd say. The port was quite beautiful, I loved the colorful boats and the fact that it jutted up right next to the Medina and Kasbah.


The final stop of the day was Ichkeul National Park. Thousands of birds migrate from Europe to Lake Ichkeul during the winter. Unfortunately, while several years ago around 200,000 birds migrated each winter now only 50,000 have been showing up. The freshwater lake is becoming increasingly more salinated, causing the ecosystem to shift dramatically. With less food for the birds, fewer birds migrate. We did have the opportunity to look through a telescope at a huge flock of beautiful pink flamingoes. Unfortunately, I don't have a camera strong enough to take detailed pictures of them.


Check out the rest of my pictures here.