TUNISIA, DAY 1: TUNIS, SIDI BOU SAID, HOTEL ROYAL VICTORIA

 March 20, 2024

Tunisia was never on my list of Travel Dreams, but it has been on Bob's for a while.

We have traveled in Morocco and Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, so I suppose it was time to hit a central North African country. It is, in fact, the northernmost country of Africa.

Here is a zoomed in view of the map that gives perspective on the relative size and location of Malta.

According to Wikipedia, Tunisia is about the size of Wisconsin but has twice the population (11.7 million compared to 5.9 million). After a revolution in 2011 that overthrew the president of 24 years, Tunisia became the only democratic state in the Arab world in 2014, and that lasted until a bit of slippage in 2020, but it is still considered a "hybrid" regime. It has one of the highest per capita incomes on the African continent.

The flight from Valletta to Tunis was only about 40 minutes long--about the time it takes to take off and land with a few minutes of flying in between. 

One note on getting cash: We usually withdraw money from an ATM in the airport in the local currency. At this airport, we were only able to withdraw 200 dinar--about $70. Chris and Stan couldn't get their card to work at all, so we withdrew dinar for them as well. This is a trick we learned about in Indonesia. If you can only withdraw relatively small amounts, you'll have to withdraw funds more often, which means you'll have to pay their bank fees more often. Very annoying.

We were picked up at the Carthage Airport by the local man who would be our guide for the next three days, Feker. We quickly discovered the Feker likes to take photos.  The first thing he did was line us up in front of the terminal for a picture.

ITALY 2024: LOS ANGELES TO ISTANBUL TO NAPLES

Wednesday, March 13-14, 2024

We planned a trip to Italy, Malta, and Tunisia during my spring break in March 2024 and invited my sister Chris and her husband Stan to join us. The trip started off a bit rocky. On Sunday morning, we were notified by Lufthansa that our Wednesday flight from LAX through Munich to Naples had been cancelled due to an airline cabin worker strike planned for that day. They offered us flights on Thursday, which would have ruined our plans for Naples. We booked a new flight for Wednesday with Turkish Air, and Travelocity promised to refund the cost of our initial round-trip tickets.

Chris and Stan, flying in from Montana, did not have the luxury of the flight options we had, and they ended up having to book their flight to Naples a day earlier, arriving on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. What a hassle.

We left for LAX at 8:30 AM, and our phone's navigation took us on the most bizarre route to avoid morning rush hour traffic, including segments through residential neighborhoods. After 2¼ hours of driving, we made it to our prepaid parking at the Hilton. Even after waiting what seemed like an usually long time for the hotel shuttle and then picking up our boarding passes at the Turkish Air desk (we had only carry on luggage), we had time to eat lunch.

Our first leg to Istanbul was over 12 hours long. (I watched 3½ movies--Priscilla, Barbie, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and half of an Inspector Poirot movie that I finished on the return flight.) It was our first time on Turkish Air, and we loved everything about it EXCEPT for very cramped seating. The food was great--stuffed pasta shells for dinner and scrambled eggs for breakfast. We especially liked the flight attendant outfits.  They did ditch the hats after take-off.

Leaving Los Angeles, and arriving (I think?) in Turkey: