Northern Tunisia is much greener than the south. It’s like a whole different world.

It has a much higher standard of living than southern half. Look at the comparison of these two towns.

South.

North.

It’s due to them being next to the Mediterranean Sea. The Sahara doesn’t reach that far, allowing better farming conditions and a center for exports.

Mosaics

Mosaics are made up of hundreds of pieces of tiles arranged to make a picture. It must take hours of patience to make such a thing.

This is the most famous mosaic in existence because of its religious subject matter. All other mosaics focus on daily life, animals, or mythology.

Neptune and a seahorse.

Neptune again with a chariot. Our tour guide admitted that Neptune was his favorite god.

The four seasons. Starting at the upper left and going clockwise, it goes from Spring to Winter.

A piece of a larger mosaic covering the story of Ulysses. If you’ve read the Odyssey, you don’t need me to tell you the story. If you haven’t, too bad. It’s waaaay too long.

The largest mosaic known. The women are working on restoring it.

It’s mostly a repeating pattern of this.

After awhile, I got bored of looking at square rocks inlaid into concrete and started taking pictures of the ceiling. It was really pretty.

Medina

Medina counts as a holy city in Islam and if you go there nine times, you no longer need to take a pilgrimage to Mecca. That’s a good thing for me because as a non-Muslim, Saudi Arabia will not allow me to enter.

Mosaics were everywhere on the inside. It seems to be their decoration of choice for holy places instead of paintings.

A prayer room that I’m not allowed in.

I can still reach my camera around the corner.

Clocks that tell the times throughout the day when one should pray. The times are a little flexible and one can even double or triple them up if they have a busy day.

Green is the color of Heaven so tombs of important people are painted in green.

This art piece is called Snowflake in Forest. Tunisia has no snow so I’m curious as to why and how this was done.

Mosque

A mosque is the Muslim place of prayer.
There’s something like 2,000 columns decorating the place recovered from ancient Roman cities.

This watch tower is the oldest of its kind in the world. Flags are raised when it’s time for prayer and faraway citizens can see them and start heading to the mosk. Bells are usually rung as well for the convenience of those nearby.

When praying, men and women are separated. This can be by a wall, a screen, or just a few feet of empty space.

A sundial marking the prayer times so those in the watchtower would know when to ring the bells and raise the flags.

A closer view of the sundial.

Troglodyte Village

Troglodyte homes are little more than tunnels dug into the side of a mountain. Originally, they were used as hiding places from invaders. People stay in them nowadays because they can be pretty comfortable with a natural way of keeping cool.

The paintings on this door are signs of welcoming to friendly visitors and a way to keep evil spirits out.

This was the entryway.
A sign of hospitality in Tunisia is to serve the guest mint tea. To refuse the tea is one of the worst signs of rudeness. In a real show of generosity, they made freshly baked bread with a mixture of honey and olive oil for dipping. Delicious.

The family was pretty open to 20 students stomping around their house taking pictures of everything. Everyone left a donation in thanks.

I could happily live in a house like this.

They have electricity, cable, and phone lines but they still do many things the old fashioned way. This woman is grinding up grain for bread between two flat rocks.

This little girl was adorable and insisted on showing everyone her pet chameleon.

Coliseum

This coliseum in Tunisia is almost exactly like the one in Rome but in a bit worse condition. It’s also not as big.
I trust you’re all intelligent enough to know what occurred in coliseums so I’ll be quiet and let you enjoy the images.

Tunisia is considered by many to be the Europe of Africa. The standard of living is fairly high, women are equal citizens, environmental concern is starting to grow, etc. It was under French control until recently so the two official languages are Arabic and French. It is a Islamic country and considered part of the Middle East even though it is technically on the African continent.

The Sahara covers a good portion of the southern part of Tunisia. When people think of the Sahara, they think sand but that's only 25% of it.

Vegetation grows out in the desert. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll catch sight of wild camel herds grazing.

Another 25% is the salt lakes.

It stetches on endlessly.

The remaning 50% is mountains.

Of course, you can't forget about the oases. They're pretty important for surviving in the desert. Naturally, cities crop up around the so finding the serene pool of water surrounding by the swaying palm trees and tents of the nomads is pretty rare.

However, the small ones are still filled with life. They're are birds chirping and frogs burbling all around. It's peaceful.

The countryside is beautiful but it's really just much of the same hence why I'll be focusing on other things from now on.