Upon arrival at the international airport in Monastir, Tunisia, and after getting through customs, we were directed to a mini-bus chartered by our travel company, in which we were driven directly to our hotel. After a 90-minute ride, we arrived at our "apartment hotel", Royal Residence, in Hammamet. The staff at the reception desk were very pleasant and spoke perfect English, which is always a comfort when you first arrive in a new country. When we opened the door to our surprisingly large and quite nice apartment, we were at first disappointed to be greeted by lots of flies! But we soon learned that there seemed to be only a certain part of the day that flies were "on the move", so we simply had to make sure the patio doors were closed during that period. Interesting, we never saw (or felt) a single mosquito during our entire two weeks in Tunisa!
We prefer renting an apartment when we travel on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean, because we think it’s much more relaxing to be able to brew and enjoy your morning coffee and breakfast slowly and un-rushed on your own balcony. Also, we think it’s so fun to be amongst the locals at the open markets and grocery stores while "on the hunt" for food with which to stock our kitchette. Another benefit is that it’s more relaxing, romantic, and cosy to have dinner out on your own balcony with candlelight and wine – without having to worry about finding your way back to your hotel.
We've discovered that in restaurants (especially during the evening meal), you often run the risk of getting seated next to smokers, because not every country has laws about non-smoking areas in restaurants). You also run the riks of being seated directly beneath a loud speaker with blaring music, or near a group of people who are drunk and laughing or talking so loudly that it's disturbing and stressful. We do, of course, also enjoy several dinners out in restaurants during our stay in other countries, but we've learned to be more picky about where we allow the headwaiter to seat us.
In Tunisia, nearly every meal includes couscous. We discovered that quite often the menu might claim that a certain entré comes with rice or barley, but what you get is the same old couscous. But it didn't matter to us, because almost everywhere the food was very good! We are not the type of people who go to ultra-fancy or super-exclusive restaurants, so perhaps it's a different story in those kinds of restaurants.
Our apartment hotel was almost 3 miles from the "downtown" area of Hammamet. We've learned to chose an apartment that's locatd more in the suburbs, in order to be assured peace and quite. You run the risk of getting stuck with a room next door to a disco club, if you book a hotel in the thickest of tourist areas. We also enjoy and appreciate the ability to get to the know locals, as well as the extra exercise we get by walking through the neighborhoods on our way to the "downtown" areas.
Next story: The hunt for food.
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