As you can see from the map below that there is a direct road from Kairouan to El Jem. However according to the map I brought, the road was colored as yellow, meant it’s secondary road. Based on my experience before when I traveled to Tabarka, roads in the remote area with yellow color on the map have rather bad road quality. People we asked in Kairouan also suggested taking another path, which was 30 KM farther but better road. We followed the recommendation and we went in Sousse direction first (north, then to the east) up to Msaken then turned right to the south to El Jem (the same route to Sfax). After driving around 100 KM in 2 hours (we stopped once to buy watermelon from street vendor) we arrived in El Jem.

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The main attraction of the El Jem (or sometimes also referred as El Djem) is its amphitheatre. Being the world’s fourth-largest Roman amphitheatre, the view of amphitheatre of El Jem is nothing less than staggering. As we approached we realized how enormous its size was, it stood out for miles. Built 1800 years ago, it is estimated that it could seat 30.000 spectators. It has almost elliptical size with 149 meters, the big axe’s length, by 124 meters the small axe’s length. The spectators sit on the marble tiers which in total there are five tiers. It is believed that the main spectacle was the gladiator shows.

To me, it’s the best Roman historical site I ever visited in Tunisia. Compare to other historical sites of Roman era (Dougga for example), El Jem amphitheater construction is pretty well preserved. If you have only one day to visit any of Roman site in Tunisia, then you have to go to El Jem. I made a 360 view from inside the amphitheater, apologize if you find the picture is not so smooth. Click on the link below:

360ViewInsideElJemAmphitheater

We walked around for almost an hour. Not so many other travelers at that time. We left El Jem at 6 evening and arrived in Tunis at 9. As I live in Tunis, I don’t think it will be necessary to stay overnight in Kairouan or El Jem. The one day travel started at 10 morning from Tunis, arrived in Kairouan at midday, in El Jem at 5 and finish in Tunis at 9 evening (sunset was 8:30 PM) and spanned across 500 KM. With my ford fiesta, we’ve spent less than 40 liters of gasoline. With one liter sans plomb gasoline costs 1.25 the journey cost 50 dinars and some dinars more for entry tickets. The car rent will cost somewhere around 40 dinars per day depends on the type of the car (I rent my car in monthly basis as I also use it for work).

At this time the highway from Tunis goes as far to the south as to Msaken (south of Sousse), from there to El Jem the road is just one lane and sometimes during high traffic it requires concentration to drive on this condition. Nonetheless we saw highway which was still under construction as an extension from Msaken, probably up to Sfax. It should be open soon and by that time traveling to El Jem should be even more enjoyable.

As usual, please enjoy some pictures from El Jem amphitheater.

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