How do I get to Tabarka?
It's a 2-hour 40-minute flight from Paris to Tunis airport. Tabarka is just under 200km from Tunis-Carthage international airport. Annaba-Rabah Bitat international airport, in Algeria, is closer (100 km and 2 hours' drive). It's because Tabarka is so isolated that it's not much of a tourist destination! Fortunately, there are occasional flights to the airport, but no regular flights from France. The best option is simply to make a stopover in Tunis, Monastir or Djerba. Tabarka-Ain Drahem International Airport is 17km to the east of the town, so allow 25 minutes for transfers.
Go and drink a mint tea with pine nuts at the Café de France, known as the Café des Andalous, the equivalent of the famous Café des Nattes in Sidi Bou Saïd. This is Tabarka's best-known café, located on Avenue Habib-Bourguiba. The decor is top-notch, with its earthenware tiles and heavy wooden doors, not forgetting the puppets hanging from the ceiling. You can also do as the locals do, smoking chicha and playing cards.
Tabarka has a touch of Brittany about it, with its wild, rocky coastline and thalassotherapy centres. What's more, you can eat lobsters, slipper lobsters and sea cicadas, caught off the coast and in the Galite archipelago.
One of Tabarka's specialities is the red coral that comes from formations off this coastline, aptly nicknamed the Coral Coast. You can take home jewellery, rings, pendants and bracelets, provided you don't overdo it, as the natural coral reefs are getting smaller every year.
After Brittany, the Alsatian side of the region comes from the storks that spend the winter here. This is an opportunity to bring back another typical souvenir: a stork figurine planted in a piece of cork oak, which can be bought at the craft market on the Promenade des Aiguilles, opposite the Genoese Fort.
In July and August, save an evening for the famous Tabarka Jazz Festival! It takes place in the superb setting of the Basilica of Sainte-Maxime in Tabarka, built during the French protectorate in an old Roman cistern. The slogan: "Don't sunbathe like an idiot!
