La Goulette

La Goulette, Halq al Wadi, sits where the Lake of Tunis meets the sea, and it was the port and the fortified gateway to the capital, with a Spanish and then Ottoman fortress guarding the channel. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was a mixed quarter of Italians, Maltese, Jews and Tunisians, and that history survives mainly in the food: the seafront is lined with fish restaurants and the local cooking shows the Sicilian influence clearly.

Background

The Arabic name, Halq al-Wadi, means 'the River's Throat', and in Italian the town is La Goletta. It stands on a sandbar that separates the Gulf of Tunis from Lake Tūnis, 12km east of Tunis, and its port is the meeting point of the country's major road and rail networks, with ferries sailing to Europe. Charles I of Spain had the kasbah, Fort de la Goulette, built in 1535. In the 19th century the port became a popular place for summer holidays. The municipality had 45,711 inhabitants in 2014.

Source: Wikipedia, "La Goulette"

The main sights

• The fish restaurants - the seafront strip the suburb is known for.
• The kasbah - the Ottoman fortress guarding the channel into the lake.
• The mixed quarter - the streets of a formerly Italian, Maltese and Jewish neighbourhood.
• The lake channel - the cut connecting the Lake of Tunis to the sea.

When to go

April to June and September to October are the most comfortable. Summer evenings on the seafront are busy with Tunis families. Restaurants are busiest at weekends.

Things to know

The beach is poor and the water quality in the channel is not good. Restaurants vary a great deal and the tourist-facing ones overcharge. The suburb is run down in parts.

Nearby

Carthage is north, and Tunis is west.

Key facts