...tourist towns, I admit. I liked Nabeul less for that reason. As for Tunis, even though I was at the Bab al-Bhar gateway, I didn't feel as much tourism.

If you like quiet places where you can go for long walks, El Haouaria is for you. But don't go too many people, because Habib might be angry with me.

And above all, take local transport, bus, hire car. You'll see that the people are welcoming and you'll be able to strike up a conversation that will tell you more about the country than all the tourist guides.

The current name of "Tunisia", which comes from French, is derived from the name of the capital, Tunis, followed by the Latin suffix -ie. The Latin derivative was subsequently adopted in several other European languages, with a few modifications, to differentiate the country from the city of Tunis.

The territory of present-day Tunisia is the home of the Capsian culture, a Mesolithic culture which lasted from 10,000 to 6,000 BCE and to which the city of Gafsa gave its name. It is also the cradle of Carthaginian civilization which reached its peak in the 3rd century BC. BC, before becoming part of the kingdom of Numidia, then becoming an important province of Roman Africa and passing for a few decades under Vandal domination.

Ruled by a succession of Arab-Muslim dynasties within Ifriqiya (إفريقية), the longest of which is that of the Aghlabids, then became an Ottoman regency, notably with the emergence of the local dynasty of the Husseinites, it came under French protectorate May 12, 1881 with the signing of the Treaty of Bardo. At independence on March 20, 1956, Tunisia first became a constitutional monarchy.

But, on July 25, 1957, the republic was proclaimed. Habib Bourguiba becomes the first president of the Tunisian Republic. He modernized the country which he led for thirty years, marked at the end by clientelism and the rise of Islamism.