I got lost in this ancient medina. It was magnificent

The alleyway hits a dead end. So does the next. And the next.

Wandering deep into Tunis’ 7th-century medina and its souqs, I am lost. Blissfully lost. Here, in the ancient, walled heart of Tunisia’s capital, the cobbled laneways seem to snake endlessly in a parade of doors.

Great, studded doors of epic proportions are painted either cobalt blue or rich saffron and festooned with amulets and charms; knuckle-shaped knockers, the mystical hand-shaped hamsa, spears and crosses, stars and crescents. Some doors are arched and built to accommodate a man on a horse and there’s a smaller, human-sized door within the door; others have knockers that resonate differently – one for male visitors, another for women.

A door is, of course, a portal, and all lead to possibility, from the prosaic to the palatial. On my ramblings, I pass hammams, madrasses, dars – bathhouses, schools, mansions.

Bougainvillea vines wind prettily across archways that lead into cafe-filled piazzas that once served as open marketplaces, not all their stories so pretty. Up to 7 million people passed through Tunisia’s slavers’ markets before the practice’s abolition in 1846, says Monta Cherni, my guide on this journey with Intrepid Travel. The majority of them were from the Balkans, he says, traded through Tunis by Portuguese privateers, Ottoman opportunists and the rogue Barbary pirates who patrolled the coastline of north Africa.

“So you’ll find Tunisian people with blue eyes, dark skin or light hair,” says Monta. With his wide, aquamarine eyes and cheekbones so high and sharp you could carve rock with them, he’s a living result of this crossroads.

After a recce with the group, I find myself returning again and again to the medina, solo and again with my new tour buddy, Leah. We’re seeking out one of Tunis’ oldest cafes, Dar El Mnouchi, following Monta’s curious directions: walk past north Africa’s oldest mosque, Al-Zaytuna, through the Turkish market and on to the old slaver’s market (now the town’s gold market). When you hit the linen market, Souq el Leffa, duck through a low door and you’ve found the cafe.

The air is sweet with shisha smoke, the walls are covered in tiles. A tile aficionado, even for me it’s an overwhelming riot. Richly coloured, floor to ceiling, tiles, glorious tiles. On the tiles in the cafe’s many alcoves, I spy the tree of life, musicians, oxen with human faces, countless different geometric formations and a backdrop for young Tunisians watching football and drinking mint tea, gossiping in the cavern-like cafe that has provided respite since it was built as a caravanserai or inn, in the 16th century.

After I pay for my coffee, the cafe’s owner nods to the stairs behind the cashier. “Up. Up,” he says.

Thus directed, we climb the tiled staircase, through more rooms decorated with dusty lanterns, old TVs, tiles and timber bistro chairs, up three flights until, suddenly, the roof opens to the sky.

And here it is. The medina laid out at our feet below. To understand it, you have to be up high. Tunisia’s mosques are off-limits to non-Muslims, so there’s no climbing the minarets, but the cafe’s roof is more than compensation.

Diving back into the medina, my doglegged route takes me far from the touristy heart of the market, through the oldest market, Souk El Attarine, with its perfumes and spice mountains, past the Souq des Chechias, Tunisia’s felt caps, in traditional red, with some snappy pink versions with an eye to the foreigner. Past its cute hamsa-emblazoned leather slippers to the workaday heart of the market; the booksellers and dealers in old brass lanterns and throne-like chairs with gilded inlay, stalls selling only zazwa, the hammered brass pots for making short, rich Turkish coffee.

Surprisingly, my phone’s maps can track some of my wanderings, but even it gives up. However, the locals I meet are used to lost foreigners, and they can usually send me on my way. One, avuncular Mohamed, literally takes me by my elbow, steers me to a former palace for a photo op before sending me back to Al-Zaytuna mosque, my lodestone and the cornerstone of the medina since the 7th century. Built over an older Byzantine fort or church, its columns are even more ancient, foraged from the fallen city-state of Carthage, laid waste by Rome to pay for general Hannibal’s hubris. Now on Tunis’ north-eastern fringe, the bones of a once-great city are woven into the medina’s skeleton.

The crowd has thinned and I’m eventually ejected from the medina back to the 19th-century Ville Nouvelle at the Porte De France or Bab al-B’har, the Sea Gate, one of five remaining gates to the medina. JRR Tolkien wrote that “Not all those who wander are lost.” Although, even if you were lost, it’s no bad thing in the Medina of Tunis.

The details

Tour
Intrepid Travel’s 12-day Tunisia Expedition costs from $5295 a person, twin share. It includes accommodation, most meals and entry fees. See intrepidtravel.com

Visa
Australian tourists do not need a visa to enter Tunisia when visiting for fewer than 90 days.

The writer was a guest of Intrepid Travel.