The Bardo Museum
(The National Bardo Museum in Arabic -- but I love how abstract and artistic it is)
The Bardo is one of the most amazing collections of mosaics in the world -- it is incredible how many different mosaics, from different eras, are found in Tunis.
The Bardo is housed in a beautiful renovated building right in Tunis (easily accessible on the Metro). The Bardo is actually right next to the Parliament building -- something that I found out the hard way, as I thought it would be pleasant to wander the grounds of the Bardo, and ended up face to face with soldiers, tanks and guns. They were very kind though -- and just let my friend Nehal and I out the main gate to the street.
The Bardo is actually in an old Turkish palace, but has been completely renovated so that only some of the rooms interiors still have the old Turkish style.
I have to admit that as amazing and beautiful as many of the collections in the Bardo are, there is practically no documentation, and so the experience is not particularly educational without a guidebook or other an actual guide.
My visit to the Bardo, like so many of my expriences in Tunisia, actually reminded me of how fascinating Tunisia is -- and what a mix of cultures and people have crossed through here. So many of them leaving behind beautiful mosaics.
Let's not forget that today's Tunisia was once both Rome's greatest foe (Carthage and the Punic Wars) and then was also itself Roman.
There is a sign in the Bardo that reminds the audience that Cato the Elder, a Roman statesman, used to finish every speech to the Roman Senate with the statement "And may Carthage be destroyed." I found this funny because in the signs written in English and French, they left the Latin without any translation, and despite my studies of Latin in high school, I could not understand it -- so I read the Arabic version, where they actually translated it, and understood!