Kelibia

The Carthaginians fortified this headland in the 5th century BC as Aspis, 'the shield', which the Romans later called Clypea, and its position near the strait between Africa and Sicily made it a repeated target. Roman forces besieged it in 255 BC, in the first battle of the First Punic War fought on African soil, and it changed hands again in the wars of the following centuries; the neighbouring Punic town of Kerkouane, a dozen kilometres up the coast, was abandoned in the same period and never resettled, which is why it survives intact.

The fort that dominates the town took its present form in the 16th century, on a promontory that had been fortified since Carthaginian days. Its oldest parts are Roman and Byzantine, and the Aghlabids, Zirids and Hafsids rebuilt and used it before the Ottomans; it served successive rulers as a watchpoint over the channel. The town below stayed small, living from fishing, grain, olives and vines, while the coast attracted corsairs and the counter-raids that came with them. Andalusi families expelled from Spain in the early 17th century settled across Cap Bon and brought new crops and building traditions with them.

Under the French protectorate the harbour was improved and the vineyards planted for export wine expanded; the dry muscat that carries the town's name dates from that period of commercial wine-making. After independence, fishing became the mainstay, and the town became the home of Tunisia's National Fishing School, and Mansoura's beaches drew Tunisian rather than foreign holidaymakers, which is broadly still the pattern. An amateur film festival founded in 1964 gave the town an unlikely cultural reputation that it retains.

Kelibia is a fishing and farming town that has not been reshaped by mass tourism, and it behaves accordingly: conservative in dress, sociable in the street, and organised around family, the harbour and the seasons. Visitors are welcomed without being courted, and there is little of the touting found in the resorts down the coast.

The film festival is the town's best-known cultural institution. Founded in 1964 for amateur and independent film-makers, it brings screenings, debates and visitors from across the Arab world and Europe to a town of this size each summer, and it has trained several generations of Tunisian directors.

Wine is the other local peculiarity. Muscat grown on the slopes behind the town is made into a dry white wine sold across the country, a trade that sits quietly alongside a religiously observant town; alcohol is bought in licensed shops rather than drunk in public. Fishermen keep their own customs and calendar, and the state of the catch is a standard subject of conversation. Cap Bon's wider traditions are close at hand — Nabeul's pottery, the distilling of orange blossom in spring, and the summer habit of wearing a machmoum, the small posy of jasmine, behind the ear.

About 52,000 people live in the municipality, the great majority in the town itself and the villages immediately around it. The population rises steeply in July and August with holidaymakers and with families returning from France and Italy, and drops back to a quiet routine for the rest of the year.

Fishing and agriculture are the two pillars. The port supports boat owners, crews, ice plants, wholesalers and transport to the markets of Tunis, while the countryside produces grapes, olives, citrus, peppers and tomatoes, with processing and packing work in the small towns nearby. Summer tourism and seasonal rentals add income, and many households depend on money sent home by relatives working abroad, especially in France.

The day follows the boats and the heat: early landings and market shopping, a long afternoon pause in summer, and evenings in the cafés or on the coast road. Young people complain of limited work and drift towards Tunis or abroad, and irregular boat departures from this coast towards Italy have become a recurring issue. Water supply, coastal building and pressure on fish stocks are the local debates.

Fish dominates, straight off the boats that fill the harbour. Sardines grilled over charcoal, sea bream and bass, octopus stewed or salted and dried, and prawns from the gulf are the staples, usually eaten with slata mechouia, the salad of charred peppers and tomatoes pounded with garlic and olive oil, and plenty of harissa. Seafood couscous, the semolina steamed over a spiced fish broth, is the dish for a Friday or a family gathering.

Cap Bon's fields supply the rest: peppers, tomatoes and chillies for harissa, which is made in the region on a commercial scale around Nabeul, along with citrus, olives and early vegetables. Everyday cooking runs to ojja, eggs set in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, kamounia thick with cumin, and lablabi in winter. Brik, the fried pastry parcel of egg and tuna, is the usual starter.

The town gives its name to a dry muscat wine made from grapes grown on the slopes inland, one of the better known Tunisian whites and a natural partner to grilled fish. Alongside it, the peninsula produces orange-blossom and rose water used in sweets and coffee, and the local sweets are the national ones — baklawa, almond samsa and bambalouni fried and sugared at the beach in summer.