Day 3 – From Life of Brian to Indiana Jones

After the coast, the blue Mediterranean and the movie history of Sousse and Monastir, Day 3 takes us away from Tunisia’s coastline. We turn inland towards a city that would become one of the biggest surprises of our entire journey: Kairouan.

And that isn’t just because of Indiana Jones.

From the coast into the heart of Tunisia

After visiting Sousse and Monastir, the landscape slowly begins to change as we head towards Kairouan. The coast disappears behind us, the surroundings become drier and we travel deeper into the Tunisian interior. Once again, the country begins to show us a completely different side.

From the moment we arrive, Kairouan feels special. The atmosphere is relaxed, the pace is slower and, despite its enormous historical and religious importance, the city feels surprisingly accessible. There’s no overwhelming tourist circus here. Instead, there are narrow streets, small shops, markets, smells, colours and, above all, incredibly friendly people.

This feels like the North Africa you hope to discover.

Kairouan was founded as early as 670 AD and grew to become one of the most important centres of the Arab-Islamic world in North Africa. Even after Tunis became the political capital, Kairouan retained its religious significance. Today, the city is considered one of Islam’s most important holy cities and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988.

Throughout and around the medina, you’ll see mosques, minarets, domes and religious buildings. The absolute highlight is the famous Great Mosque of Kairouan, whose origins, like the city itself, date back to the seventh century. Much of its present form dates from the ninth century, and the mosque had a major influence on Islamic architecture throughout the Maghreb.

But, of course, we’re also here on another mission.

Cairo? No… Kairouan!

For movie fans, Kairouan has a second identity. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the city doubles as Cairo.

In the movie, Indiana Jones arrives in Egypt as his search for the Ark of the Covenant continues. But Harrison Ford wasn’t actually walking through the streets of Cairo. For several of these scenes, the production of Raiders came to Tunisia.

And once you walk through Kairouan, you immediately understand why.

What surprised us most was that they barely had to build anything here.

Of course, the filmmakers added props, market stalls, animals, extras and all sorts of little details to create the atmosphere of 1930s Cairo. But the streets, walls, gateways, passageways and houses?

They were already there.

And the best part?

They still are.

As if Indiana Jones left yesterday

Armed with images from the movie, we walk through the medina searching for the different filming locations. And then something happens that makes movie-location fans like us ridiculously happy.

You look at a shot from a movie released in 1981, lower your phone and…

There it is.

The same wall. The same archway. The same doorway. The same street.

Sometimes the colour has changed, or there’s now an air-conditioning unit, an electricity cable or a modern shop sign. But the basic structure of the medina is astonishingly recognisable. And that fits perfectly with Kairouan’s historic importance: its maze of narrow streets, traditional houses, walls and gates has been remarkably well preserved.

We recognise several locations from the Cairo sequences and walk through streets where Indiana Jones, Marion and Sallah once appeared on screen. And because so little has fundamentally changed, it doesn’t feel like you’re visiting a former movie set.

You’re literally walking through it.

That might make Kairouan even more impressive than a purpose-built film set. A set can disappear. This city had already existed for centuries before Indiana Jones arrived — and hopefully it will still be here for centuries after us.

Exactly why we make this journey

After all that movie-location hunting, there’s fortunately plenty of time to simply let Kairouan be Kairouan.

Wander through the medina. Stop at a little shop. Have a chat. Look around and, most importantly, don’t rush.

The city has a wonderful, authentic North African atmosphere without constantly making you feel as though someone is trying to sell you something. We found the people friendly, curious and relaxed.

And that perfectly sums up what we want to show people with Binary Sunset Tours.

Yes, our love of movies is one of the reasons we travel through Tunisia. We want to stand in the places where iconic scenes from our childhood were filmed. But along the way, we keep discovering that Tunisia is so much more than a collection of filming locations.

On Day 3, those two worlds come together beautifully.

We start on the coast at locations connected to Life of Brian, turn inland and finish in an ancient Islamic city that, in 1981, suddenly became Cairo.

And somewhere in one of those narrow streets of the medina, there’s really only one thing left to do:

Look around and start playing the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme in your head.

Da-da-daaaaa, da-da-daa, da-da-daaaaa, da-da-da-da-daaaa…

Welcome to Cairo. Or rather: welcome to Kairouan.