Official Tunisia.com Blog

Day 2 the lizard train

We woke up early and quickly ate breakfast and headed off to Metloaui which took the best part of an hour. The station itself is very easy to find and on a busy day such as today you can simply follow the tour buses. The train leaves in the morning at 10:30 give or take 10 minutes as for prices it seems it is 20 dinars for tourists and 15 for Tunisians naturally ley tatakallem englise in such situations and the 15 dinar tickets were ours.

The train itself is a antiquated style train which i was told was a bey train and illogically was furnished with armchairs situated a meter of so apart so I recommend getting there early if you need a seat as they we where full when we got here but some good soul gave up their seat for Sara bless them.

It was a busy trip on the day we went with all of the train full but all seemed in good spirits and thankfully the train was not so full as to be uncomfortable.

The train itself is on a line to a phosphate mine and as such you can see around the station the hallmarks of heavy industry. As soon as all where on board the train horn sounded and we were off.

The train worked it's way through the town and into the hills giving us the chance to view some fantastic views on its way to the phosphate mine itself where it changed trucks and worked its way back. The train also took it's time and stopped so that everyone could take a photo though you had to be careful when jumping off and not to be left behind.

On a nice day like the day we had you had to be crazy not to enjoy the great views and the rid itself which was not too rickety my only complaint was the western music which I thought was tenuous as this was not the runaway mine train and i would much prefer Tunisian music as the vistas deserved a more authentic soundtrack.

I managed to get some half decent photos but with a zoom lens rather than the walk about one I have at the moment I would have managed to get some really good photos.

Once we finished on the train we got into the car and headed back on the long journey to Bizerte.

This was only a 3 day excursion and I will cover all locations in more detail in our travel guides section and also add further places soon starting with the north of Tunisia. I will be down south again for sure in december for the Sahara festival and god willing before.

Please hold in mind that if you intend to come down here to drink lots of water and plan ahead there is nothing you cannot do but make sure that you are ready for heat and if you have a hard time walking people to help you.

If you have any questions please either comment here or feel free to post in the forum.