ALLAN ROGERS GOES ROMAN' AROUND TUNISIA The sound of workers in the olive groves carried up on the still clear air and a shepherd drove a large herd of sheep and goats past the forum.

"SAD" is the word for it. It means Seasonally Affected Disorder and now that less sunshine is coming into our lives we realise how that winter condition influences us.

My cure was to get away and find some warmth in North Africa. When I arrived I found that the Romans had been there before me.

It seems that Hadrian not only built a wall to keep my Scottish ancestors in, he also had his lads build an 90 km aqueduct in Tunisia, but as they say, a lot of water has run ‘over’ the bridge since then!

Their feats of architecture still remain, to reminding us that the Romans were a sophisticated lot, at a time when we were running around with blue paint on our faces. (A habit that still tends to persist at international football matches.)

There are still bits of the aqueduct to be seen. It was operational from the 2nd to 13th century when water from the mountains flowed to Tunis. and Carthage.

In January the oranges growing on trees were plentiful and as our jeep trundled along the dusty road we passed a small donkey contentedly quenched his thirst by munching on a wind fall.

Hassan, (our knowledgeable driver) told us that even the orange trees were brought there by the Romans, as were gum trees and olive groves I suspected that for any soldier it was a more welcome posting than dealing with the Picts on Hadrian's wall

This area in the North is called “The Garden of Tunisia” It was not at all as I had imagined Tunisia.



The harsher sands of the deserts lay much further to the south. It was fertile and surprisingly green.

The vines in the fields below the Atlas Mountains were begun by a Roman General who retired to grow wine.

It had been an early morning departure in Hassan’s little mini bus and the mist lay in the rows of olive trees that reached towards the craggy hills. Occasionally we passed men on little motor scooters each wearing a round helmet of the sort worn by human canon balls when fired from a circus cannon.

Brightly coloured washing was strung across from houses that were blinding white in the sun. We speed past the Sinbad and Aladdin Hotels. Men in hooded cloaks veiled ladies crowded the dusty roads. We might have felt warm in our summer shirts but to them it obviously seemed cool.

We passed through a Berber village with a bustling weekly market. The Berbers were the original inhabitants but now only account for 1% of the population.

There are still nomads who move from place to place to gather the olives and a hundred thousand tons are produced. We passed a donkey laden with packs and a man swathed in a kind of duffel coat with a pointy hat, then we turned off down a little country road.


The first rays of the morning sun were hitting the Corinthian columns in the ruins at Touborba Mjor, a roman city where once lived fifteen to twenty thousand people.



We wandered down it's streets thinking of those who had been there two thousand years ago and somehow in the silence of the morning the place tended to put things into perspective. Set against it all, our little lives seemed but a speck in time


To fully appreciate the splendour in which they lived you have to visit the famous Bardo Museum at Tunis where the mosaics attached to the walls and floors show something of the true opulence of the rooms.

You might even begin to fancy the life of those times but of course you'd have to be sure you were having grapes popped in your mouth and not a slave being flung to the lions.
We drove on further into the hills and passed an encampment of Nomads.

The morning sun climbed higher into the sky and burned the mist away from the valleys and it was warm when we reached and Dougga, one of the most remarkable and complete Roman cities.

A once mighty place with a stunning outlook it has enough remains for you to easily visualise what life may have been like. There was even an amphitheatre that could seat 3500.

We passed a headless statue and smiled as the guide claimed that when they changed the Emperor they fitted a new head.
You were very aware of those who had been there before you.

The ruts made by the chariots could still be seen worn into the paving stones of a Roman road that once ran straight from there to Algiers.

Somehow it felt timeless and the sound of workers in the olive groves carried up on the still clear air from the valley below, just as it must have done for centuries past.

A shepherd drove a large herd of sheep and goats past the forum and our guide took great delight in explaining the layout of a large building that had once been a brothel.

It seemed a pleasant enough place surrounded by a garden, "See here the large waiting room, see the alcove for the cashier" he enthused.

Once we were filled with a good measure of history and culture we went for lunch to the café in the little town below.

As we eat, we seemed to be under the eye of a wild boar whose head was mounted on the wall and some wit remarked,

“He must have come through there at a hell of a rate.”

At the beginning I mentioned S.A.D, Seasonally Affected Disorder,

but as we drove back towards our hotels we found the true meaning of the word sad.
Beneath shady trees at Med Jez el Bab we found a WW2 cemetery and row upon row the stones from the 39-45 war. Two thousand nine hundred and six graves.

Every regiment including the Black Watch. They stood in neatly mown grass. The sun was shining but somehow there seemed no sadder spot.

FACT FILE
Tunisian National Tourist Office