Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites and Amphitheatre of El Jem

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites

   Water is the thing you cannot take for granted in central Tunisia, and the Aghlabid emirs, who ruled from Kairouan in the ninth century, solved the problem with engineering. They built a series of reservoirs outside the city, fed by a channel that brought rainwater down from the hills to the west. The Great Basin is a huge round pool, about a hundred and twenty metres across, with thick buttressed walls and a small central pavilion, and it looks more like a stage than a tank. Next to it, a smaller settling basin allowed silt to drop out before the water flowed in.

   Read the complete Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites is where the day begins. Next is Medina of Sousse.

2. 2. Medina of Sousse

   Sousse is a city that has been busy for nearly three thousand years, under the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Arabs, and its old town, the medina, still has the crowded, enclosed feel of a place built behind walls. It stands on the Tunisian coast, in the region called the Sahel, a belt of olive groves and white towns between the sea and the dry interior. Sousse was Hadrumetum in Roman times, and later became an important port, and it was ringed by walls in the ninth century, parts of which still stand.

   Read the complete Medina of Sousse write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Medina of Sousse comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Amphitheatre of El Jem.

3. 3. Amphitheatre of El Jem

   El Jem is a small Tunisian town with a very large building. Rising out of the flat plain of the Sahel, the amphitheatre of Thysdrus, as the Romans called the place, is one of the biggest ever built, a three-tiered oval of pale limestone more than a hundred and thirty metres long, and it was designed to hold some thirty-five thousand spectators. Construction began in the early third century, probably under the rule of the wealthy local landowners who grew rich on olive oil, and it was never fully finished, because the African governor who encouraged it was killed in a revolt in 238.

   Read the complete Amphitheatre of El Jem write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 129 km into the recorded legs you reach Amphitheatre of El Jem. Next is back through Medina of Sousse.

4. 4. back through Medina of Sousse

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Medina of Sousse write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Medina of Sousse, late in the day. Next is Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites.

5. 5. Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Le Grand Bassin des Aghlabites. That is the ride.