Destination of the week: Tunisia
It's not possible to see everything Tunisia has to offer in one trip - and we don't suggest you try. This is a selective and subjective taste of the country's highlights: distinctive architecture, a rich archeological heritage and stunning natural landscapes.
1. Kairouan Great Mosque - One of Islam's holiest sites - four trips here, so they say, are as good as a pilgrimage to Mecca.
2. El Jem's amphitheatre - This huge area where gladiators once slogged it out is much better reserved than Rome's Colosseum.
3. The forests of Ain Draham - Not the landscape you expected in Tunisia, Alpine, snowy in winter and planted with cork oak trees, whose bark is stripped periodically to make anything from bottle stoppers to floor tiles.
4. Desert dunes - The Sahara as you always imagined it: mile after mail of fine windblown sand. El Faouar is as good a place as any to make its acquaintance.
5. Brik a l'oeuf - Tunisia's national snack, an egg fried in pastry, requires a certain knack to eat without the yolk spilling onto your clothes.
6. Star Wars sets - See where Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi fought off the evil empire.
7. Kerkouane - A town whose ancient privage houses, each with a characteristic red-bottomed bathtub, are almost the only surviving remnant of a Carthaginian culture systematically destroyed by Rome.
8. Jerban mosques - Built by a breakaway sect of Island to double up as places of refuge in times of trouble, the fort-like mosques of Jerba attractively dot the island's interior.
9. Bulla Regia - Subterranean villas and sumptuous mosaics at the country's most unusual Roman site.
10. Dougga - The most extensive Roman site in Tunisia featuring a restored theatre, a town brothel and an intriguing Libyco-Punic mausoleum.