Searching for a taste of ancient and modern, ANDREW EAMES visits Tunisia's second city, Sousse

I'M  sitting on the terrace of Dar Essid, a restored 1,000-year-old merchant house in the heart of Sousse's ancient medina, enjoying some freshly brewed coffee as I admire a spectacular cityscape of domes, soaring minarets and blue sea.

Sousse is Tunisia's second city, a sort of Tunisian Barcelona, combining the beach with a bustling, ancient metropolis. It also compares favourably with other Tunisian holiday hotspots.

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While Tunis is a fascinating North African version of Paris with a medina and good for a weekend break, it's not an easy place to relax in. Djerba, in the south, is primarily a beach destination but even the Tunisian south is not really warm enough in spring to sustain a beach-only holiday.

Sousse's medina may not be as extensive as that in Tunis but it is still the heart of the city with a maze of narrow pedestrian lanes home to craftsmen shaping metal and stick leather, and where the faithful come to pray and where you can have your jewellery custom-made.

Of course there are tourist-oriented stalls, too, down at the medina's entrance where shopkeepers greet tour groups with typical Del Boy patter. "Come in mate and have a gander" they say, suggesting that their pouffes are all "luvvly jubbly".

The medina's narrow lanes are cobbled and whitewashed, opening out into courtyards and squares. At the bottom end it is busy with tourists and lined with colourful stalls selling pottery, leather goods, fruit and spices. Informal terraced restaurants serve grilled meat and salad outside the Great Mosque.

Then comes a narrow maze of glass-fronted gold shops with itinerant gold sellers loitering on the corners and, beyond that, further up the hill, it's quiet and residential.

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Some of the medina's international visitors will have drifted into town from Sousse's golden beach which is within walking distance of the city's traditional heart and stretches for mile after mile northwards.

This extensive tourist zone, with a line of big hotels, has just been boosted with the opening of the Movenpick Resort & Marine Spa, Tunisia's largest five-star property, whose choice of Sousse is a real feather in the city's cap. The hotel is making a big virtue out of its thalassotherapy pools and virtually all its guest rooms have extensive sea views.

I was keeping downtown Sousse a bit more at arm's length by staying in Port El Kantaoui, a purpose-built, Andalucian-style resort with hotels, villas, amusement park and a golf course five miles up the coast. Here the hotels had more expansive gardens, the streets were quieter, the beach was more peaceful and bars and restaurants were clustered around a neat, yacht-filled marina ideal for the evening promenade.

The resort felt like a European enclave where I could lie on the beach or sit by the pool when the weather was good. When I wanted a blast of local culture and a change of scene, as well as substantially cheaper prices in the shops and restaurants, I could jump on the regular road train that shuttled between the resort and Sousse.

It also makes a good base for trips into the hinterland too. Sousse train station offers regular services north to Tunis, 90 minutes away, and close at hand there is also El Jem, home of a red sandstone Roman amphitheatre of a size to rival Rome's Colosseum. I was even more surprised by the delicacy and even the modernity in the mosaics in the adjoining museum.

All in all, sitting up on that terrace at the Dar Essid, I concluded that I'd done well by plumping for Sousse.

THE KNOWLEDGE:

Tunisia First (01276 600100/www.tunisiafirst.co.uk) offers seven nights at the four-star Hotel Kanta in Port El Kantaoui from £359pp (two sharing), half board. Price includes return flights with Tunisair (0207 437 6673/www.tunisair.com) from Heathrow to Tuni.

Tunisian National Tourist Office: 0207 224 5561/www.cometotunisia.co.uk