The Medina of Tunis by Fraser Harrison

Not so long ago, before the French colonial period, the Medina of Tunis was Tunis. Now it is a city within a city, an oval labyrinth of winding, narrow streets, which forms a self-contained unit of 667 acres in the very centre of the modern capital. There is far more to it than the usual collection of souks to be found in most North African towns. The Medina survives as a fully functioning community with its own mosques, schools, hammams, cafes, workshops and residential quarters. In the honour of its survival and its unique integrity, UNESCO has designated this Arab medieval city a world heritage site.

The best way to explore the Medina is to launch yourself on the current of people flowing through the narrow streets and abandon yourself to chance; in a word, to get lost, something easily done even with the map in your hand. The heart of the Medina is the formidable Zitouna (Olive Tree) Mosque, which was founded in AD 732. Clustered close to it were the souks owned by the ‘noblest’ trades - jewellers, wool and cotton weavers, rug makers, gold beaters and so on - and they still give their names to the streets, though they have been renamed in French; Souk des Femmes, Rue du Tresor. Closest of all is the Souk el Attarine, the perfumiers’ souk. Nowadays only a handful of perfumiers remain, though their stalls are among the most elaborate, with painted interiors and fretwork fronts. Here I was persuaded to have essence of cactus dabbed on my wrist; apparently, it was indistinguishable from Chanel No 5.

The souks are packed with men and women dressed in all varieties of Arab costume, walking in a never-ending two-way stream. Most of the dog-leg alleys that make up the Medina are barely wide enough for a donkey cart to pass. They are cobbled, or paved with bricks and even marble slabs. Some are open to the sky, while some are covered by arched roofs or barrel vaulting and lit with huge lamps hanging from chains. The residential streets are recognisable by their blank, windowless walls, which are punctuated only by heavy wooden doors, studded with patterns of black nails and painted blue or green.

Without success, I tried to keep my bearings by following the old French blue-and-white street signs that identify some, but not all, the main alleys. I suddenly found myself in the second hand clothes district, half an acre of shops and stalls selling suits and frocks and hats that must have been discarded in the 1940’s and never worn again. A radio played skiling Arab music at top volume. Next I walked through a street lined with little workshops, as dark as caves, where old men wearing chechias, the Tunisian red felt hat, were bent over sewing machines. I turned into a street where every shop was devoted to pots and pans and pressure cookers, and then in to another one where nothing but lingerie was sold. A man in desert robes cut open and peeled a prickly pear for me, offering a choice of pink or purple fruit. Nearby was a stall selling the dried corpses of a little creature piled on a skewer; they were chameleons and if thrown on the fire would repel evil spirits.

I strayed into Rue Jemaa Zitouna, which swarmed with souvenir sellers who spoke every known language and accepted every credit card. I was promised a man’s friendship and the chance to view the Bey’s Bed, alleged to be big enough to accommodate four wives at once, each sequestered in her own little curtained compartment. I escaped and passed through alleys monopolised by jewellers, potters, sandal makers whose wares were hung on sticks like dates, suppliers of bridal wear, hat makers, goldsmiths and silversmiths selling huge Berber bangles, a family’s entire wealth that could be strapped round a woman’s ankle.

In the cool of a carpet shop I found the owner sparaled in an armchair, sucking on his hubble-bubble. He appeared to be exhausted, though he was the only one in the dark room not working. A team of women, sitting cross-legged, were tying and snipping the ends off the knots of wool that composed the carpets they were making. One of the women told me it takes 160,000 knots to put together even a smallish carpet. The owner wearily pointed to the stairs and suggested I should climb them.

He was right. Above his shop was a roof terrace, wonderfully decorated with tiles whose colours - cobalt blue, egg-yolk yellow, rope green - glowed in the sunshine. From this vantage point, lifted above the warren of souks below, one could see the scale and shape of the Medina. It was mapped out in an aerial topography consisting of white domes, barrel roofs, minarets, terraces and the twisting gulleys between rooftops that marked the bigger streets. It is said that lovers used to meet on these terraces, safe from prying eyes in the courtyards below. I returned to the shop, thanked its owner and plunged back into the Medina’s beguiling maze.