Tunis was a short stop-over en route from Cairo to Genova. We lived inside the medina, and visited those markets, but also the ones outside the old city, and took the local train to the coast town La Marsa.

It was Ramadan. One night after sunset we ate something awful at a gourmet restaurant, and the next night something wonderful at a long table outdoors on the pavement. Afterwards we went for coffee to a place where men drank tea and coffee and shouted and played cards and banged their fists in metal tables and dragged the metal tables around. There was a large tv screen with Champions League football on, but very few were watching and no-one for sure was listening. And all through this we were politely served and after that equally politely ignored. Soon we were shouting too, and by then the cigarette smoke had grown too thick and we were laughing too hard, and had to say good night an leave. That place was the best of the whole trip.