#DayofDredd

Today is the Day of Dredd when the legion of fans of the chisel chinned Judge from the pages of 2000AD raise their voices in unison to call for a sequel to the rather good 2012 film starting Karl Urban. I quite like the 1995 film starring Sylvester Stallone too but it is probably best not to mention that.

I have done my little bit to raise the profile of Judge Dredd today by tweeting with the hashtag #DayofDredd and by writing this blog post, which also gives me the opportunity to dig out a photo of me wearing the 30th anniversary t-shirt on holiday in Tunisia in 2007 when it was new.

Roman ampitheatre at Carthage

One of the main reasons for picking Tunisia for our late summer holiday was the Roman settlement at Carthage, which is now a northern suburb of Tunis. 

It takes around 20 minutes to get there by train from Tunis Marine station and costs less that £1 for a return first class ticket (not that everybody in the first class compartment would appear to have a first class ticket).

There are several Roman sites in Carthage and one ticket covers them all for less than £3. The amphitheater is the furthest from the town center, being about 1km north of the railway station (Carthage Hannibal - there are several stations in Carthage). 

The other sites are clustered around the station and include a theater, museum (on the site of the forum), villas and baths. All this makes a full day out and we went there twice to see everything at leisure (cynics would also say that the first trip was shortened by the unexpected rain!).

The train journey back is an adventure in itself. It does not seem to matter when you travel but the train is always full and mostly with students aged around 16. 

A common sport for the lads is to hold the train doors open while the train is moving and to lean out of the door while hanging onto the outside of the roof of the train. This is of no concern to the other travelers who are obviously used to this behavior and normally the doors are opened before the train stops and are closed after it moves off with the train being stationery for only a brief moment, which makes getting on and off interesting!

Exploring Tunis Medina

The old town of Tunis, the Medina, is fascinating.

There is a warren of narrow paths that contain a mix of shops, workshops, houses, mosques, former palaces and probably all sorts of other things all masked by the plain facades.

It varies from the Medina in Casablanca in that the paths are narrower (no motorcycles here!) and the shops are more concentrated in the few main streets, and it differs from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul in that it has more than just shops.

The place it reminds me of the most is Venice which has much the same mix of uses and the same confusing maze of paths.

And it also has the hidden gems that you come across unexpectedly, like the courtyard shown here.

I want a holiday in the sun

The holiday started with a taxi to the airport at 4:30am which was a bit brutal but which has proved to be worth it as it meant that we were at our hotel in Tunis around 11am and so were able to start enjoying our holiday on the first day.

The hotel is in the heart of the new town with its heavy French influence that includes a wide boulevard that has lots of cafes and restaurants.

At one end there is an impressive clock tower that is surrounded by fountains that keep changing their shape.

We did little other than walk up and down the boulevard and have a few drinks and a couple of meals but that was plenty to reassure us that we had picked a good place for our vacation. We also think that we have sorted out which train to catch for Carthage and we plan to go there tomorrow.