Sousse, Tunisia
May 23 to 30, 2002
Putting the article among the DXPeditions seems to me a bit confusing. Due to lack of time before we start the holiday I was
not able to get neither the 3V8 license, nor the approval to use a club station 3V8SQ hospitality. There is a way how to be active from some
of the clubstations in 3V8 but you have to get in touch with DL1BDF - Mustapha, which works a a "general manager" for the Tunesian
club stations.
He sends the formular you need to fill and send him back plus 5 Euro and then you obtain an approval to work from chosen
club station there in Tunisia.
Mustapha states this is the only way how to be active from Tunisia.
We were accomodated at the Marhaba
hotel in Sousse (third biggest town in the country) which offers you the European standard and really good services and the delicious food.
All the complex of several buildings is situated very close the seashore (less than 5 mins of walk) and is surrounded by palm trees and a lot
of excotic plants full of the blossoms in different colors.
Except the sunbathing and swimming we would like to learn as much as
possible about the development of the country well known since many years before Christ. The great opportunity was the trips
organized by the travel agency named TTB (Tunisian Travel Bureau). First short trip headed us to the old part of the town Sousse,
to Medina - full of small shops offering anything you can imagine. From Medina we continued to the modern harbour Port el Kantaoui
full of nice yachts immatriculated nearly in all continents. We admired nice modern architekture of the Hanibal hotel as well
as the park full of attractions, pools and fountains.
But the nices was the trip to the capitol city of Tunisia - to Tunis.
We set out early morning as the weather forecast promissed too hot and our first stop was at the National Museum in Tunis, where we
can saw very nice statues and mosaic from 500 year before A.D. Very informative and interesting visit. From the museum we continued
to another ancient place - to Karthago.
One cannot missed the place mainly
if he like the history. Not even the amazing rests of the old Roman buildings and aquaducts, but also beatiful view to the
bay of Tunis became unforgettable experience for us.
The last stop in Tunis was at the ruins of the Antonin's Bath,
close to the president Ben Ali palace. Another very interesting piece of the history of humanity. It is difficult to imagine
how way the people have transported so big, many tons weighted columns over the sea. Our tour guide told us they used wood
fasted around the column and put the column under the ship keel - very intelligible illustration of the Archimedes rule.
The only dark spot on the very nice trip was the fact it was Sunday, May 26th, the date of the WPX CW contest and I felt not very
comfortable if appreciate I am close the 3V8BB´s QTH (then I did not know the station was occupied by Hrane/YT1AD
as usual, hi).For the rest of our stay there at Sousse we were offered by another trip - two days trip to desert but
we decided to let it to the next visit as we wanted to take some bronze and take a rest after the trip to Tunis.
What
could we say at the end of the story... The few days we spent there at Marhaba hotel in Sousse was one of the best holidays
in our life and we sure will do our best to visit the nice country and all places again in the near future. Hopefully I will
have enough time to get the license and kombine the sunbathing and swimming with some DX activities from there.