More history in Tunisia, along the coast

6th to 9th March 2026

From the desert we headed to the coast and learnt more of Tunisia’s history.

The land was flat from the desert, and we crossed many salt lakes.

We reached Djerba, an island connected by a causeway. Djerba is known for its mixed cultures living harmoniously. We were introduced to pottery, perfumery and olive oil manufacturing. We visited the oldest known synagogue and the Jewish quarter with its wonderful mural. We visited the Turkish souq where Bruce found coffee, despite Ramadan.

Next stop was El Djem, home of the most intact roman colosseum – but it was never completed. We also visited the archaeological museum which had a reconstructed Roman villa and magnificent mosaics on display.

Our last stop for the day was a tour of the medina in Sousse.

We started our final day with a tour of the Ribat at Monastir. Next stop was the mausoleum of Habib Bourguiba the first president of Tunisia from 1957 to 1987, after they gained independence from France.

Our last stop at Hammamet was to visit George Sebastian’s eclectic home and then tour the medina.

Our time in Tunisia will finish with a couple of rest days (catch up on photos and correspondence), and then off the Morocco.

A cultural journey in Tunisia

2nd to 5th March

We left the ancient history of Tunisia behind, and embarked on a cultural tour, driving south to salt flats and the desert, home to the Berber people and a number of Star Wars locations.

We started our journey with a tour of the Great Mosque of Kairouan. It is considered one of the holiest and most important mosques in Tunisia.

We were also treated to a display of ethnic rugs. I loved the natural colours of the rugs, taken from white, brown and black sheep.

It was a long drive for our next stop in Tozeur, on the edge of the Sahara desert.

We were taken to the market, where our guide and chef Nabil Chokmani bought some fresh vegetables for a cooking demonstration. Then it was a quick horse and buggy ride to see a date plantation and learn just how important these palms are to Tunisia and its people.

Our lunch at the Eden Park Date Plantation with Nabil Chokmani was a spicy chicken with a salad and wonderful brick as starters. We then had more opportunity to learn about dates, their history in Tunisia and their uses.

In the afternoon we were taken by a four wheel Toyota to visit a mountain oasis, and a waterfall famous as a film set for The English Patient and Raiders of the Lost Ark. We returned to Tozeur via the desert, in a sand storm and were astounded at how the driver could “see” the road. This took us to the Star Wars set – Mos Espa (1997).

The next morning we toured the medina of Tozeur and in our free time returned to the market to indulge in a few photos of local produce and people.

Lunch was supplied each day, and today it was in a guest house. These old villas are becoming popular boutique hotels and restaurants.

A long drive, across the Chott El Jerid salt lake and deeper into the desert. Date palms were thinning out. We arrived at our desert camp in late afternoon and settled in to the sandy experience. In the evening musicians and a dancer entertained us, along with a horse and rider demonstration and an introduction to sand bread.

Next day we drove to Matmata where the locals have lived in underground troglodyte homes for centuries. This was inspiration for George Lucas films.

We climbed high into the Atlas Mountains with stunning, if not dusty views. Here we came to Ksar Hahda, another Star Wars filming location.

Our accommodation was in a Berber guest house, set high on the hill of Chenini. Masoud came to greet us and lug our cases up the hill, then showed us around the amazing terraced houses. I noted that our guest house was the highest on the hill. Quite a climb for these old legs.

Tunis, Carthage and Dooga

26th April to 1st March 2026

Our first days in Tunis were discovering the city and some magnificent Phoenician and Roman ruins. We continued on to Testour and Dooga.

We are here for Ramadan – shops and cafes aren’t open. We hadn’t anticipated this but we had. chosen a cooler time of the year to travel here.

The Burdo Museum is famous for its collection of mosaics. A lot of them have come from houses of richer people in Carthage, an old Roman city. Some mosaics are enormous covering walls. Of course they would normally have been on the floor.

There was also an interesting exhibition from Zama Regis, a newly discovered Roman archaeological site. I was particularly taken by a statue that had a lot of colours still on it.

The original private quarters of the ruling Bey family form part of the museum. It is a showcase of beautifully tiled walls with intricately carved ceilings.

We wandered through the Medina, of course these days it’s mostly tourist type options, such as leather boots, leather bags, friendly looking toy camels and lots of shiny brass. There was some jewellery and lots of fez hats in all colours.

We visited three separate areas of ancient Carthage. Firstly the national museum which is closed for renovation but we were able to see some monuments and understand the layout of the old settlements. The Basilica of St Louis 9th of France commemorates where he succumbed to the Black Death while on a crusade. He was considered the holiest king and is the only royalty to be canonised.

Our second stop was the Antonina Roman baths with a very good display showing how they worked.

Lastly to the Phoenician port. It was in two parts – a rectangular pond where the merchant ships stopped and a discreet channel that took military ships into a circular pond with a large island in the centre. This was used to repair and maintain the 18 foot sailing ships in the 4th to 1st centuries BC.

Carthage was originally a Phoenician settlement and towards the end of the third century and into the second century BC Hannibal defended it in three separate Punic battles. In the second battle he introduced elephants probably brought up from Africa. He crossed the Alps with them. He lost badly in the third battle and retired to Armenia where he suicided by poisoning himself. The Roman victors burned Carthage to the ground. It burnt for a year. For the next hundred years the site was ignored until the Romans realised that it’s in a strategic position in the Mediterranean basin so they built over the top of the Phoenician Settlement.

Next day we left Tunis . Our first destination was Testour, an Andalusian village. It was settled by Jews and Arabs who had been driven out is Spain by Isabella the Catholic Queen. There was a great souk full of interesting food derived from the Jewish and Arabic settlers.

Next stop was the Dooga Roman ruins, they were absolutely amazing. The amphitheatre was as good as anywhere and beautifully presented. The temple of Mercury was massive and seemed to dominate the site. We wandered up to the Temple of Caesar that has an oriental (as in Greek) construction which us semi circular with a rectangular temple situated inside it. The Roman baths were in very good condition as well.

The Silent Partner has arrived!

After the excitement of Evan’s Chocolate Lindt ball melting in Melbourne video, we put pressure on him to get his portfolio web site updated.

Once again, we used the WordPress framework and Bruce selected a theme called Hueman.  It is a beautiful and simple responsive theme.  We modified it a little to make the menu appear where Ev wanted it, along the way introducing Ev to the power of WordPress and the cleverness of Firebug in Mozilla Firefox.

The Silent Partner went live today. It showcases a selection of Evan’s work from Method Studios and some of his personal work. Most important is his current show reel a 1 minute 9 seconds review of some of his work.

I also like Evan’s quirky photography and I look forward to seeing more after he and Steph visit Mexico and New York in March.

Well done, Ev. Great to see your work up and out there.

TheSilentPartner-header

Celebrating Beer, Beef & Fellowship

Today we launched a new web site – for the Beer & Beef Club of Melbourne.

The Beer & Beef Club celebrates beer, beef and fellowship.  First established in June 1963, it was set up by Carlton & United Breweries with the charter of promoting beer and appreciating it as a perfect beverage to accompany good food.

The club has been expanded to a number of state and regional areas, some of which are very active, so our new web site has a home for each active region and state, where events can be promoted.  These are all linked to the Beer & Beef Club of Australia.

The development of the web site was a collaborative effort between Bruce & myself.  We had a lot of fun and just a couple of terse words bringing it together, but we are truly delighted with the finished work!

B+B beer-beef-fellowship 2

Peninsula College of Nails & Beauty – brand new look

My latest project is a brand new look and feel for the Peninsula College of Nails & Beauty, for Helen and Karen.  PCNB is a college for people who want to join (or rejoin) the beauty industry, either in a salon or working from their home business.

Bruce designed a new look using the Theme Horse Attitude WordPress theme, which is fully responsive, easy to customise and can display a slideshow.  He chose some beautiful images from Masterfile Stock Photos, which we incorporated into the slideshow.

We used the Raleway & PT Sans Google Fonts to add to the clean high key look.

I really enjoyed the project and look forward to training Helen and Karen on how to manage the site later in the year.

So this is the old look:

Learn Beauty originalAnd here is our bright, clean new look:

Learn Beauty new

It’s All About You – a better site

I was approached recently by Alison and Karen who run a business providing hair and make up services for weddings and special occasions.  Their business will service events anywhere in Melbourne, and they pride themselves on the stylists and artists they employ for these very special occasions.

Alison and Karen have a web site It’s All About You, but they wanted to make some changes to the content to make it easier to read and navigate.  They were keen to ensure that their site was visible to search engines.  They also wanted to introduce their own services for follow up.

The site uses a template from Template Monster, written in .html.

It has been a lot of fun working on the first phase of this glamorous and enticing site with a dynamic duo.

ItsAllAboutYou

Down Under Online – now online

Good friend Michael Mardel develops and publishes easy to use black line masters for individualised learning.

His site needed a fresher look, and I am thrilled to today announce that the new look website is now live at http://downunderonline.org.

Bruce designed the look and feel, borrowing from the classic Australian green and gold colours and I implemented it using the WordPress framework and Themekraft theme.

Down Under Online

WordPress

1 Reply

This site is built using WordPress. Pages and even Posts may come and go and themes (look of the site) will change as I test some of the offerings from the WordPress community.

As I write this I am playing with the twenty-twelve theme.  As you are reading this you may see a completely different look.

HelpAtThea in Twenty-Twelve

As I post, this is what the site looks like. Still raw.