The Cap Bon peninsula is where Tunisia stretches a thin arm toward Sicily, only about a hundred and forty kilometres of water away, and this stretch of its north-east coast is the quietest part. Close to here lies Kerkuane, the only Punic town in the Mediterranean we know to have been abandoned rather than built over. It was probably taken by Roman forces around the middle of the third century BC, in the First Punic War, and nobody came back, so what you see is a Carthaginian town frozen in a street plan: walled blocks, a grid of lanes, courtyards, wells and, remarkably, houses with their own bathrooms and hip baths.
The archaeologists were happiest about the plaster floors and the purple. Kerkuane's people made dye from murex shells, and a mound of broken shells beside the site makes that real. The place was only identified in 1952, and UNESCO listed it in 1985. There is a small museum, good for context, and a sea breeze that is welcome in summer, when the stone gives back a lot of heat.
The riding is gentle and rural. The coast road from Kélibia, eleven kilometres south, runs through olive groves, vineyards and low scrub, with the sea flashing between the pines and a surface that varies from good to patchy. Kélibia is a proper town of over forty thousand, with a hilltop fortress, a harbour full of fishing boats and a decent supply of fuel, cafes and fresh fish. El Haouaria at the tip is the other nearby base and has its own character, with falconry and a quarry coast. Do not count on fuel out in the villages between them; fill in Kélibia.
The ride goes on to Tunis and its medina, about two hours by motorway and main road, so an early start is sensible. Spring and autumn are best, when the light is clear and the maquis smells of herbs. In July and August the heat can be fierce by midday, and the afternoon wind off the sea is steady enough to push a bike around.