8 hours in Lyon

It makes absolutely no sense. I wanted to fly from Montasir (the airport near Sousse, Tunisia to Djerba, Tunisia. The flight should have taken an hour. Maybe. The buses were too slow and the train doesn't go to the island of Djerba, so I was set on flying and doing so today. Well, the only flight that came up in multiple searches was a flight from Montasit, to Lyon, France, and to Djerba. It seemed ludicrous...but the flight did offer an 8 hour layover in Lyon. That was appealing. I haven't been to France in years and never to Lyon. So I booked it.

When I arrived at the airport for my 6:30am flight, the guys at check in thought it was crazy. One even offered to put me on a flight that connected in Tunis, but I declined. I was already looking forward to a coffee in the old city.

An 8 hour layover doesn't mean 8 hours of walking around Lyon. It means 5 hours max. There are a few tricks to these just-long-enough-to-leave-the-airport layovers. I try to check in for both flights at the beginning and check my bag through to the end, so I'm not messing around with bag collection and checking in. That wasn't possible for this flight, so I took my bag as a carry on and left it in the luggage storage at the train station. I also study ahead of time. If you've only got a half day, there isn't time to figure out when you are there what you want to see or do. So I do my homework and determine what areas I want to visit and what I want to see and how I am going to get around. If I can (as I did in Lyon), I buy my transit tickets online ahead of time and I get foreign currency before landing so I don't have to waste time in queues. And most importantly, I study maps intently. Like I am planning a bank job. I want to know, as much as possible, what exit to take from the metro and which bridge to walk across and what street to turn left on when I get to the other side. This satisfies both my desire to make good use of my short layover and my fondness for maps.

It all worked well today. I probably could have even spent another hour in the city but I didn't want to risk missing my plane.

I took the express airport train and then the metro to Vieux Lyon; the old city...and also the most touristy, but it is popular with visitors for a reason. The streets are so charming, with old buildings hung with old signs, narrow lanes lined with cheese shops and quaint cafés, patisseries, and churches. 

And overlooking it all is a cathedral on a hill. 

I walked up and down the streets, stopping for a coffee and a pink praline tart - apparently Lyonnaise specialty. So good and disgustingly sweet. 

I walked down the river for a bit, photographing churches and buildings. 

Back on to the Rue Ste Jean, looking for number 53 or 54 and for a plain door, which would lead to one of the many traboules - hidden passages which lead between buildings to other streets and also to private residences. There are apparently 315 of them, but only a few are accessible or known to the public. According to the good book (Lonely Planet) some of them date to Roman times and the rest were in the 19th century. It was indeed a long passage, in some places providing access to apartments. Who doesn't love secret passages? If only i had to pull a candlestick to gain access.

I then took the funicular up to the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière, which is a beautiful 19th century cathedral overlooking the city. There were priests wandering around, as well as worshippers, but they were outnumbered by tourists, so I was able to take pictures. 

I then walked to Place Bellecour and took the train to Hotel de Ville to see some of the fancy buildings in that area.

At that point i headed back to the airport. I probably could have spent another hour, but I didn't want to be rushing to catch my flight. I saw what I wanted to see, had an afternoon in France, and was on my way back to Tunisia.

El Jem

On my second day in Sousse I decided to visit El Jem, a small city about an hour away, which is notable for its fairly well-preserved amphitheater dating to ~230. I know I just said i was over Roman ruins, but this isn't ruins per se, it's a structure, not rubble.

I had a bit of time before the train so I walked around some more and followed a small tour group of germans into the courtyard of the great mosque.

I took the train, which was cheap and pleasant. The scenery wasn't much to look at - dry land, cacti, boxy villages, and rows upon rows of olive trees. In El Jem, it was easy to figure out where to go: walk towards the giant amphitheater.

It really was quite impressive. It held about 30,000 spectators in its day, all there to see battle between men and beasts. It was fun to scramble around on the various levels and explore the tunnels underground where the combatants waited for their (presumably final) moments.

It is very much like the colosseum in Rome, but just a bit smaller, with FAR fewer tourists, and 100% more camels.

While there i ran into a girl I had met in Tunis, from Shanghai and traveling solo. We hung out together for a while, walking the site and having coffee.

Then it was time to return to Sousse. And that is when the misadventure began. The train was not running again until after 6pm, and even then was not going to Sousse, but to a nearby town. The main bus station was missing, as was any information about it. So we decided to take the louage - a shared minivan, lie a marshrutka - very common for locals. The girl I was with had taken it to El Jem and had not had any problems, so we walked to the station. One louage was just leaving for Sousse (full). There was no way to know when another would arrive, but there were at least 39 people waiting. The way they work is the van leaves when full, but each van only holds 8 people, so it looked like we might be there a while. I tried to convince a taxi to drive us (and was prepared to pay handsomely for it) but no one would agree. Back to the louage station and even more people were waiting to go to Sousse. We quickly realized that there was no order to the boarding of the louage. When one arrived for Sousse, people rushed at it, cramming and pushing on. It was mayhem. I realized that if i was going to get to Sousse, I was going to have to take extreme measures.

The next time a louage with the Sousse sign on it drove into the station, I and others, ran towards the vehicle, while it was driving. One guy opened the panel door and jumped in, while the vehicle drove. Then a girl and her friend. Then i grabbed on to the seat back, pulled myself in, and my temporary traveling companion followed. As we did so, other people tried to push us out of the way so they could do the same. By the time the van came to a stop, it was already full. It may not have been driving super fast, but I still felt like a low level action hero.

Once on board, a full on argument broke out between the two women sitting behind us and the driver. There was yelling in Arabic happening for like 5 minutes. The whole time, I was stressed that we were going to be kicked off for some minor infraction. One of the women was lightly slapped in the face by some man. Then things were quiet and we left, my heart beating.

Following that melee, the evening was relaxing. I had some super spicy, Tunisian vegetable dish, followed by shisha at a kind of fancy salon de thé. Then I went to bed, because the next morning I was being picked up at 3:30am for a flight to France..and then back to Tunisia.

Sousse

I caught a morning bus from Tunis to Sousse. An easy trip, a little more than two hours. About $4. The scenery wasn't great, but it was relaxing...well, sort of. I surrounded by a school group of children going to some pro-Palestine event. Loud singing and horseplay. Them, not me.

In Sousse, south on the coast from Tunis, I walked from the train station ti the medina and found my hotel, the Hotel Medina, just behind the great mosque. Nothing makes me feel as capable and independent than arriving in a new city where I cannot speak the language and finding my way with a map. 

The weather was perfect and the city begged to be explored. Sousse dates back to about 9th century BCE and is centred around a walled medina just blocks away from the harbour. The medina is smaller than the one in Tunis but is no less interesting, the souq is bustling with mostly locals and the streets are filled with vendors selling nuts and sweet treats, kids playing ball, and people going about their daily lives.

It is a tourist destination due to the beaches and resort hotels, though they are quiet at the moment. It is warm, but not quite beach weather and tourism is still suffering after the 2015 terrorist attack where about 30 people were killed when gunmen started shooting at one of the beach resorts.

I walked the medina, browsed the souqs, and walked up the beach aways; plenty of locals were enjoying the sun and sand. I did get lost for a while, due to a bird which shit on my map, rending one part of it indiscernible. I went to the ribat (an 8th century fort) and climbed the watchtower, which provided excellent views of the city and into the courtyard of the great mosque.

Aside from the miles of walking, it was a pretty chill day, which I finished with vegetable couscous on a patio and a cigar sitting on a step outside of the mosque. While I could always spend more time, a day in Sousse is sufficient, which is good because the next day I would be going to El Jem.

Tunis : Plan B

Day three in Tunis started, as they all do, with breakfast. Breakfast at the hostel is bread heavy. Pan au chocolat, baguettes, fig jam, fig sweet rolls, cake, tiny bread doughnuts, and oranges fresh from the tree. The oranges here are excellent, as is the freshly squeezed juice which is available on every corner.

I left right after my carb infusion and caught a (very inexpensive) taxi to the bus station to go to Kaiouran, a very important holy site. About 3 hours by bus, i figured it would make a good day trip and a round trip ticket was about $4. The bus was to leave at 8:00, but it was late. The bus needed repairs. I chatted with a local young man, studying to be an electrician. He told me how he wants to move to Finland or Canada but that it is very difficult. Jobs here, he said, are in short supply. By 9:00 they said the bus would leave at 11:00 and i realized my day trip was sunk. Plan B: the Bardo Museum. I caught another taxi.

The museum, which I was not super keen to visit, was excellent. An extraordinary display of 2000 year old mosaics in an old palace, along with statues and some pottery and other bits and pieces .

I got there right when it opened and it was fairly empty. That soon changed. Bus loads of tourists (Italian & Chinese tourists) arrived. I watched as person after person took pictures of themselves in front of the mosaics, jumping repeatedly to get just the right shot. Comical and confounding.

The museum was the site of a terrorist attack in 2015 and a number of tourists were gunned down. There is now a monument marking the event. Not that one ever expects to be shot, but it seems particularly unexpected in a museum, so quiet and organized.

I left the museum, planning to get a taxi. Tonnes drove by, but none stopped. I walked to the tram and got various, conflicting instructions about which tram to take. I finally figured it out but each tram that stopped was crammed full. Back to to taxi plan. About 20 minutes of watching countless taxis drive by, full. I approached a guy who had a lonely planet and who was also trying for a cab, suggesting that we share, as the odds were so poor and we were both going back to the medina. At it turned out, he was staying at my hostel. It took us close to an hour, but we got a cab.

Back at the medina, I spent the rest of the day walking around, visiting the market, stopping for shisha and coffees, finishing up with a small vegetarian pizza (the easiest to find vegetarian meal).

Nothing quite went as planned, but it was a good day.

Carthage & Sidi Bou Said

Day two in Tunis i took the train North to Carthage and Sidi Bou Said. Having mastered the medina (well, the middle bit) I walked from my hostel to the train station and bought a 2nd class ticket for Carthage.

A 2nd class ticket for the ~35 minute ride was less than a dollar. First class was 2 or 3 times more. The only difference between classes was the padding on the seats and how crowded 2nd class gets. It was an easy train ride; the stations were marked and the map made sense. I got off at Carthage Hannibal to see the ruins of Carthage.

A word of advice if you are reading this and trip planning, as the site is not at all well marked. To get to Bursa Hill and the museum and surrounding sights, walk up the hill from the train station (with your back to the water). At about the top of the hill is a road on the left heading further uphill. Take that road. If you start going downhill, you've gone too far. Do not, as I did, keep walking for another 30+ minutes only to have to turn around and go back.

So, Carthage is an important city - in history, literature, and culture. Founded in around 815 BCE, it is ancient and many ruins remain. There was no way I was not going to go, and I'm glad I did...but I think i enjoyed the train ride and the walk more than the sights. If I had never seen Roman or Greek ruins before I might have found it fascinating, but I have and I've seen more impressive ones. I felt like kind of guilty walking around, looking at a few erect columns, the foundations of what were once great structures, and piles of stones, and being underwhelmed. I stood, at times, looking at a partial wall or bit of stone and trying to feel something akin to awe or genuine interest, but I found my mind wandering to the juice stand I had passed earlier or whether I had applied adequate sunscreen. 

It just required a bit too much imagination. Certainly it gives the history some context, which I like, but i just can't get excited about ruins anymore unless they resemble what they were, like the colosseum or Ephesus.  After about two hours I was done.

Back on the train, I went to Sidi Bou Said, an impossibly picturesque town atop a hill overlooking the sea. The whole town is whitewashed with blue shutters, doors, and accents. Purple flowering vines creep over walls and orange trees fill the air with the strong scent of their blossoms. 

It is definitely a tourist draw, but rightly so. It was a delight to walk the streets, at each turn another perfect sight. Around the edges shops sold pottery, dresses, paintings, and souvenirs. Cafés, ice cream stands, and sidewalk sweets vendors lured in the visitors. I had lunch at a curb side eatery: vegetarian couscous.

I trained back to Tunis, with more than enough time to nap, walk without purpose, and smoke a hookah as the sun set. I love how one day in Tunis one can walk down a street in the medina and it is just an empty passage, and the next day the same street is lined with chairs and tables, filled with people (men mostly) drinking coffee and tea and smoking shisha and cigarettes. Like pop up cafés. Very enjoyable. I had the classic combo of apple tobacco and Turkish coffee and watched people wander by.

The fact that I was able to find my way back to my hostel in the medina in the dark without a map, was a minor victory.