Car Rental at Monastir Airport

The ribat of Monastir dates to 796 AD and is one of the best-preserved examples of early Islamic military architecture in the world. It was used as a stand-in for Jerusalem in Monty Python's Life of Brian and for biblical Judaea in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth. The medina wraps around it — small, manageable and full of genuine Tunisian craft shops rather than tourist trinkets.

The third-largest Roman amphitheater ever built rises improbably from a small farming town in the flat Sahel plain. With a capacity of 35,000 it rivals the Colosseum in Rome — and unlike Rome's monument, you can explore it almost alone outside peak season. The road south from Monastir passes through Tunisia's endless olive groves: one of the largest contiguous olive plantations in the world.

Built on a narrow cape that juts into the sea, Mahdia is everything the main resort towns are not: local, fishing-focused, and largely overlooked. The medina has a genuine residential character, the port markets fresh catch every morning, and the beaches north of town are clean and uncrowded. Mahdia also has a small but evocative history as the 10th-century capital of the Fatimid caliphate.

Kairouan was the first permanent Arab settlement in North Africa, founded in 670 AD. Its Great Mosque is one of the oldest and most important places of Islamic worship in the world. The city's carpet souks produce hand-knotted rugs that have been traded across the Sahara for centuries. Ninety minutes from Monastir through open interior landscape, it is Tunisia's most compelling cultural day trip.