Day 6 El Jem To Douz

What a long day! Up at 5 on the bus by 6:30 and not at our next hotel until 7. Many miles on the bus today but some very interesting places to visit. After about 3 plus hours we arrived at the first stop El Jem, site of the third largest

Roman Colosseum in the world. Only the structures in Rome and another in Italy seated more. There was room for 35000 plus when it was in use. Today a portion of the seating has been rebuilt for public concerts, etc. El Jem is in the southern part of Tunisia but the town was at the crossroads of 6 routes in the the heart of one of Rome's food baskets. The tour was very thorough surpassing what we got when in Rome. We had a chance to see the area beneath the floor where the wild animals were penned. Only a portion of the seating remains, the rest having collapse over the centuries. We walked up the the highest level which is about 4 stories high. One has to marvel at the engineering know how of the Romans. The structure is still standing because of the extensive use of arches for support and extremely thick walls. Etched on some of the blocks were references to U.S. Troops from WW2 who were stationed there. One was dated 1943 with a drawing of a pistol!

From there is was off to lunch at the place where Star Wars was filmed. It was used in some of the scenes from the first movie in 1976 for the place where Luke lived. Most of the building is underground and some of the props from the house are still in the location where the filming took place. It is now a small (very small) hotel. That was the lunch stop for the day.

Next was a stop at an actual Berber house. The hills have many of these houses that are carved out of the rock. It was a full “house” where generations starting with grandma on down lived. It is still in use today. A tourist attraction but not in the common sense of the word.

The final stop was an optional tour. This one was billed as a ride on a camel out into the desert and watch the sunset. Well sure. We were late and it was a bit cloudy! After the experience Judy had with getting on a camel in Egypt, we declined the beast and took a “carriage” ride instead. The billing was way more exciting than the ride itself. Besides camels and buggies, there were cars, motor bikes and ATV's running all over the place. It is a wonder that someone has not been killed. The ATV's were at full throttle driving all wherever they wanted to over the dunes. We were quite sedate on our buggy! The hotel was close to the camel riding site and we just made it in time for the start of dinner. Tomorrow should be a bit easier. We are only here for tonight which is probably a good thing! A long and interesting day!