Bizerte

Phoenician traders settled the site as Hippo Diarrhytus — 'Hippo of the channel' — using the natural link between the sea and the lake behind it. Rome took it after the destruction of Carthage and made it a colony whose merchants appear in mosaics far across the empire. Arab armies captured it in the 7th century, and the town became a corsair port, changing hands during the long contest between Spain and the Ottomans in the 16th century; the hilltop fort still called the fort of Spain was built in 1573 under Ottoman rule, while the kasbah above the old harbour goes back to Byzantine times.

The French protectorate transformed it after 1881. Engineers cut a deep ship canal through the town to open the lake to modern warships, built an arsenal at what became Menzel Bourguiba, and turned Bizerte into a major French naval base, a role that continued through both world wars; the surrounding hills saw heavy fighting in the Tunisian campaign of 1942–43.

Independence in 1956 did not end the French presence. In July 1961 Tunisian demands for the evacuation of the base led to several days of fighting in and around the city, with heavy Tunisian losses, and French forces finally withdrew in October 1963 — a date still marked locally. Since then Bizerte has lived from its commercial port, the shipyards and refinery on the lake, fishing and a modest summer tourism, while the old harbour has stayed much as the photographs of a century ago show it.

Bizerte's identity is built on the sea and on a long memory of outside powers. The 1963 evacuation is commemorated as a local as much as a national event, and the naval and shipyard trades gave the city a working-class character distinct from the administrative capital down the road.

Andalusi families expelled from Spain settled here and in the villages around the lake, and their influence survives in the architecture of the old town, in garden crops and in the region's music, alongside the malouf tradition shared with the rest of northern Tunisia. Fishing families keep their own calendar and vocabulary, and boats are still painted in the blue and white that the old port is known for.

Day to day, Bizerte is more conservative and quieter than Tunis or the Cap Bon resorts, and more provincial in the way it behaves: neighbours know each other, the evening walk along the corniche or around the old port is a social institution, and cafés fill with men over cards and coffee in the afternoon. Football is followed keenly through the city's club, and summer brings concerts, weddings and visiting relatives from abroad. Hospitality follows the northern Tunisian pattern — tea or coffee pressed on any visitor, invitations repeated until accepted, and a reluctance to let a guest pay.

About 180,000 people live in the city, with a wider governorate of well over half a million spread around the lake and along the northern coast. The old town and medina hold a modest share of them; most of the population lives in the new town, in Zarzouna across the canal and in the districts and villages that have grown along the roads to Menzel Bourguiba and Menzel Jemil.

The economy runs on the port and the sea — commercial docks, the naval base, ship repair and the refinery and industry around the lake, alongside one of the country's larger fishing fleets. Textile and electrical-component factories employ many women, the farms of the northern plains grow cereals, vegetables and citrus, and tourism is a summer supplement rather than a mainstay. Unemployment, especially among graduates, is a persistent complaint, and emigration to France and Italy is common.

The day begins early with the fish landings and the school run, slows through the afternoon, and turns outdoors in the evening along the corniche. Winter is long, wet and quiet; summer brings back the families who work abroad, and the city's population swells for a few weeks. Water quality in the lake and pollution from the industrial zone are live local issues.

Bizerte eats fish. The old port supplies restaurants with sea bream, sea bass, mullet, sardines and octopus, usually grilled over charcoal and served with slata mechouia, the salad of charred peppers and tomatoes pounded with olive oil, and a plate of fried peppers and potatoes. Seafood couscous, the grains steamed over a broth reddened with harissa and tomato, is the Friday and family dish.

The north's vegetables and grains shape the rest. Chorba, a peppery soup thickened with fine pasta, ojja with eggs and merguez, and kamounia, a cumin-heavy stew, are everyday cooking, and lablabi, the chickpea and bread soup, is a winter breakfast. Bread comes from the plains behind the city, which are Tunisia's cereal country, and olive oil, olives and harissa sit on every table.

Sweets follow the national pattern — baklawa, almond samsa, and zlabia during Ramadan — while the citrus and vegetable gardens of Ghar el-Melh and the lake shore supply the markets. Coffee is short and strong, mint tea comes with pine nuts, and the region's wines from the hills south of the lake are served in hotels and licensed restaurants.