TUNISIEAt the heart of the medina you will find a city centre full of life and entertainment with its traditional souks and cafes, the Rhaba. The surrounding buildings are inspired by Italian, Tunisian, Moroccan or oriental architecture.
The Medina is full of reproductions of symbolic monuments related to the different eras and civilizations of Arab history. The Skia al kahla gate for example is representative of Fatimid architecture. The Red Dome is as a jewel of Arabic architecture in Sicily and the Golden Tower, recently transformed into a marine museum is one of the most beautiful testimonies of the Muslim civilization of Seville. You may also admire the Blue Tower, a tribute to the Majorelle Garden in Marrakech.
Further away stand the ancient walls of the city of Mahdia dating from the 10th century, as well as the ruins of the ramparts of the city of Sfax. Theses incredible memorial sites are will allow you to dive into Tunisia’s legends and history and legends.
The Médina Méditerranéa offers the synthesis of the most emblematic souks of the Muslim world. They are organized around a central covered street on which open a series of fondouks al- Baghdadi, khan alkhalili, al-Hamidiya, al-Atarine, souk Marrakech ... Clearly the eastern eastern souks and the souks Tunisians.
The souk al-Baghdadi
It is just a nod to the prestigious Baghdad of the Abbasids, the round town of the great caliphs of the 8th-9th centuries. The shopping district of Baghdad was located extramuros and was called el-Karkh. The most precious commodities converged towards the capital of the Empire, the Far East as well as the West. For Baghdad is the capital of Harun al-Rashid who sent a clepsydra, a water clock, a chess game and an elephant to Charlemagne, who sent him the finest Flanders sheets of the time.
The Aleppo style Hispano-Maghreb Souk
It is a souk covered in length and has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1986. It dates back to the 14th century and it also includes all activities. For example, the souk of the soap, khan al-saboun; The souk al-harir which manufactures silk which previously arrived in raw bales from China through the Silk Road and which was converted to Aleppo into a luxury product; The jewelry souk which consisted of 99 shops.
The Souk al-Hamidiya
This Damascus souk is a straight and wide street that leads from Bab al-Nasr, the Gate of Victory, to the Umayyad Mosque. Built in 1803 under the reign of the Ottoman sultan Abdelhamid whose name it bears, its shops offer all kinds of merchandise, clothing, fabrics, brocades, carpets, mosaics, brass and silver The mosque, the booksellers ...
The Khan al-Khalili
It had been erected by a great emir mamluk named Jaharkas al-Khalili (1389). The word khan is Persian, it means caravanserai and it has become today the most famous bazaar of Cairo.
The souk al-Atarine
It is the souk of the perfumers of the medina of Tunis, souk noble by the very nature of these goods and by its proximity with the great mosque Zaytûna. It was the first Hafsid sultans who created it in the 13th-14th centuries. It is indeed the souk of incense, perfumes, henna, Kohl (antimony), various plants and minerals used in the preparation of cosmetics. Candles and candles are also sold, and the quilted satin baskets are used to carry gifts from the bridegroom to his future wife.
The Souk de la Goulette
The Souk de la Goulette is very picturesque. This small port city on the northern outskirts of Tunis was inhabited mainly by Sicilian fishing families and leather goods. By extension the word designates a ministerial function; This is how we speak of a ministerial portfolio