Port El Kantaoui is a tourist complex 10 kilometres north of Sousse city in central Tunisia. It was built in 1979 specifically as a tourist center, around a large artificial harbour that provides mooring with 340 berths for luxury yachts, hosting sporting activities from water skiing to paragliding, and several golf courses. read more…
Kairouan, also spelled El Qayraw?n or Kairwan, is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site. The city was founded by the Umayyads around 670, in the period of CaliphMu’awiya (reigned 661–680); this is when it became an important centre for Sunni Islamic scholarship and Quranic learning, attracting Muslims from various parts of the world. The Mosque of Uqba is situated in the city. In 2014, the city had about 187,000 inhabitants. read more…
The ancient El Ghriba Synagogue, also known as the Djerba Synagogue, is located on the Tunisian island of Djerba. It is situated in the Jewish village of Hara Seghira (currently known as er-Riadh), several kilometres southwest of Houmt El Souk, the main town of Djerba. The synagogue is the oldest in Tunisia, and besides being the center of the island’s Jewish life is also a site of pilgrimage, one of the legends associated with its founding claims that either a stone or a door from Solomon’s Temple or the Second Temple is incorporated in the building. read more…
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is a foreign relations instrument of the European Union (EU) which seeks to tie those countries to the east and south of the European territory of the EU to the Union. These countries, primarily developing countries, include some who seek to one day become either a member state of the European Union, or more closely integrated with the European Union. The ENP does not apply to neighbours of the EU’s outermost regions, specifically France‘s territories in South America, but only to those countries close to EU member states’ territories in mainland Europe. read more…
Sfax is a city in Tunisia, located 270 km (170 mi) southeast of Tunis. The city, founded in AD 849 on the ruins of RomanTaparura, is the capital of the Sfax Governorate (about 955,421 inhabitants in 2014), and a Mediterranean port. Sfax has a population of 330,440 (census 2014). The main industries are phosphate, olive and nut processing, fishing (largest fishing port in Tunisia) and international trade. The city is the second-most populous after the capital, Tunis. read more…
Carthage was the capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. Today Carthage is a posh villa suburb of Tunis, the location of the largest university in the country and the location of the Tunisian presidential palace. The Carthage excavations are one of the most important tourist attractions in Tunisia. Most tour operators offer day trips from the seaside resorts on the Mediterranean coast to Tunis, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said. read more…
Hammamet is a town in Tunisia. Thanks to its beaches, it is a popular destination for swimming and water sports and is one of the primary tourist destinations in Tunisia. It is located in the south-eastern section of Cap Bon and is part of the Nabeul Governorate. The reported number of inhabitants varies from 100,000 to 400,000 and the population quadruples due to tourists’ arrival in the summer. read more…
In the 8th century, the Iberian Peninsula saw the arrival of Arabs and Berbers who mixed with the Roman-Visigoth inhabitants, engendering what was known as Al-Andalus. This successful medieval Muslim civilisation extended, at its peak, to most of what is today Spain and Portugal, until its downfall in the late 15th century (Reconquista). Today, the importance of Al-Andalus to Western Europe is all too often underestimated, or attempts are made to downplay the effect of this medieval “multicultural” approach on the development of Europe. It was the numerous innovations that the Muslims brought with them (enriched with knowledge from ancient Egypt and ancient China) that gave Europe an unexpected boost in development, both in the sciences and of course in the culinary field. Try depriving Europeans of their morning coffee and you’ll find yourself dealing with an ill-tempered continent. While science and the fine arts were already being established in Al-Andalus, we northern Europeans were still on the move as “uneducated and inhospitable woodworms”. This slowly changed with the spread of knowledge from Al-Andalus to the north. At the same time, one cannot understand today’s Andalusia and its appeal without knowing the impact of Al-Andalus. read more…
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is a foreign relations instrument of the European Union (EU) which seeks to tie those countries to the east and south of the European territory of the EU to the Union. These countries, primarily developing countries, include some who seek to one day become either a member state of the European Union, or more closely integrated with the European Union. The ENP does not apply to neighbours of the EU’s outermost regions, specifically France‘s territories in South America, but only to those countries close to EU member states’ territories in mainland Europe. read more…
