The Rough Guide to Tunisia 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Sixth edition. 15,000 copies of previous edition sold. 24pp colour illus. 50 maps.

A comprehensive guide to North Africa's most popular destination, this text features coverage of the resorts - Hammamet, Sousse, Port el Kantaoui - and their beaches, with details of excursions, including trips to the Star Wars film set; recommendations of places to eat and stay for all budgets; accounts of all the sights; advice on getting around the country; and background on Tunisian history, culture and society, wildlife, and the country's passion for football.

Daniel Jacobs has contributed to numerous Rough Guides, including West Africa, Morocco, Egypt and India, and is the author of The Rough Guide to Israel & the Palestinian Territories.

Climate and seasons

Tunisia follows usual Mediterranean patterns of climate. The best time to travel, from a scenic point of view, is spring, when the south has not yet reached full heat and the north looks astonishingly fertile - above all, around the orchards and vineyards of Cap Bon. Be warned, though, that March and April are the dampest months of the year in the south and it can bucket down in the north.

Summer has mixed virtues. July and August are much the hottest months of the year - if only slightly more so than in the southern parts of Italy or Greece - and the one time you really do need to lapse into a local way of life, for example resting through the midday hours at a cafe or taking a siesta at your hotel. Obviously this goes above all for the deep south and the ksour (see Chapter Nine). On the more exposed beaches of the north coast, midsummer is actually a pull - some of them are only warm enough for swimming from around May until October. If you wait until autumn, you get the best of both worlds, with warm swimming and few crowds, even at the big resorts.

In winter, the north and the Tell can get distinctly cold; Ain Draham, the highest mountain town, commonly has a metre of snow, and in 1985 it even snowed at Bizerte on the Mediterranean coast. Tunis, Cap Bon and Sousse are not so much cold in winter as dull, with sporadic rains. But this is an ideal time for covering the ancient sites at leisure and then migrating south to Jerba's beaches and the Sahara. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Taschenbuch .