I will not return to the very well-written descriptions of my predecessors of the various places on the general site of Carthage. Carthago delenda est exclaimed the Roman senator Cato the Elder at the end of each of his speeches. He spoke of Punic Carthage as a perpetual threat to Rome. Conversely, I have tried, like Els, to disregard the Roman city in favor of the Punic city; there are enough much more complete Roman ruins elsewhere in the Mediterranean, even in Tunisia, such as Tuburbo Majus, for example, which, due to a lack of exhaustive excavations, is not even proposed for the indicative list, even though the buildings there are much more complete.

So we parked Wilson's mobile home in the Byrsa Hill parking lot in front of Saint-Louis Cathedral (Late 19th century) and walked in Flaubert's footsteps to the excavation site. The entrance fee for non-residents hasn't changed since 2022. The excavations might seem a little disappointing if it weren't for the 180° panorama of the Bay of Tunis, the chic Carthage district below, and Cape Bon in the distance. Alas, I'd almost say: as usual, the museum and the cathedral were closed, and, in the middle of the excavations, there's this recumbent statue of the King of France, Louis IX, a little incongruous in the middle of this place of exceptional ancient historical importance.

We continued our route on foot through the Roman theater, which was of no interest, as it had been almost completely reworked under a few tons of modern concrete, the Antonine Baths, which were also of no great interest, and finally the Punic military port before going back up between pleasant, clean and well-maintained properties. I wanted to see the baths to make the connection with the site on the indicative list, The Roman hydraulic complex of Zaghouan-Carthage, but we did not see the cisterns of the Mâalga.

We finally parked Wilson at the entrance to the Magon district excavations, hoping to sleep there facing the sea, watch the bathers and imagined the triremes sailing in the distance...