Doin' Dougga

Mon Dieu! (which is probably my favourite things to exclaim in French - the language learning really isn't going so well...) Dougga is extraordinary.

This is the final post that I'll do to catch up from my Parents' trip here - we took a day trip to Dougga, and I must say, it was without-doubt my favourite day. In fact, I'm gonna put it out there and say that it was my favourite day in Tunisia so far, followed in close second and third by My Birthday and last Saturday (where I did all that running, had a 5-course lunch at El Walima, went to the zoo, and then to a wedding - which I'm gonna tell you about in a hot minute - and then a nightclub and danced until 4am. Sometimes you've just got to dig deep) respectively.

When you ask people about Dougga, they go all glassy eyed and say, "Uhh, it's UrrrMAY-ZING!" and I didn't really believe them, because, other that the great one-word reviews, I had heard little about it.

But it blew me away. Completely

So let me give you some blurb - Dougga is an Roman City, about two hours from Tunis by car. The Roman buildings are largely excavated, although sadly, many of the mosaics and statues, have been removed and placed in the national museum (Or the British Museum... hmm... Sorry Tunisia... but at least study of the stolen plaque from the Punic-Lybian Mausoleum has made it possible to decode the early Berber language - Silver linings?). The attitude to preservation here has been to put things back where they belong and to rebuild and restore. The effect is breath-taking. You can walk down the Roman streets and actually imagine what it was like to live there, to be a Roman, living in North Africa, it all feels so real.

In Dougga, there are nine impressive and gigantic temples, but my I liked the Theatre best. Standing out on the stage, looking out to the tiered seating, you feel like a complete Thesp' and you can just imagine a huge crowd sitting and watching you, in their togas. The design intricacies in the theatre are flawless, there are even prompt boxes either side of the stage and under the stage there are a series of hollow pipes for acoustic dampening of the stage area (oh, did I tell you I have a Master's Degree in Physics and love all this stuff?) 

 

I took a picture that does not do it justice at all, but at least you can see my Dad's hat in there. What a hat. He wore it constantly. With pride. I kid you not.

The temples really were something. These people were sinners, or religious, or something... but they certainly felt that they needed a lot of temples. There are temples to the deities Mercury (god of travellers, traders, messengers and writers), Minerva (goddess of wisdom and arts), Pluto (god of riches), Saturn (god of time) and Juno Caelestis (goddess of protection and council), and others like the Temple of Caracalla's Victory in Germany which is dedicated to the Imperial Cult at Dougga (like a Roman "royal family"), August Piety, Massinissa (a local king) and The Capitol (which I liked because it reminded me of the Hunger Games), and which is pictured here:

Roman mythology is so interesting, I've got to get on that. As well as a deep history of Roman dominance, Tunisia also gets some good features in Roman fiction, for example in Homer's The Odyssey, the island of Lotus-Eaters refers to the Island of Djerba, the largest island off the coast of Tunisia. I clearly have some studying to do.

There's also a really interesting structure called the Trifolium Villa ('Trifolium' means 'Clover' and there's a Clover shaped room - isn't learning fun?). I loved this because it's surrounded in a cloak of mystery. No-one knows what such a large villa (seriously, huge, and it was two-stories) was up to in such a small town, or who it belonged to. Some people say it was a brothel, others a hotel... it's clear there were plenty of bedrooms and it had it own private bathhouse - pretty fancy pants! I love it when historians just don't know the answer. I like our ancestors to be able to keep a few secrets from us, just to keep us wondering. Here's the courtyard of the Trifolium Villa:

The history and the buildings aside, the thing that make Dougga so lovely is the deathly silence. The pure, eerie quiet when you can just hear the birds and the wind. It's everything that Stonehenge should be. It's magical. It's my favourite place in Tunisia.

As this is my last post about the recent good family times, I suppose I'll use this opportunity to thank my Super Brilliant Mummy and Daddy for coming to visit me. We had fun, huh? You are welcome back any old time, You Krazy Katz- However, let's all work on our timekeeping next time, shall we? Because being last on the coach at every single stop, is not my idea of a good time... And taking pictures of me, while I get narked off and shout at you to "hurry up"... not cool...

Otherwise - I love you millions x