Apart this parenthesis Ghar El Melh with its 5,500 inhabitants at the foot of the hill Djebel Nadour is famous to have one of the most beautiful beaches of Tunisia,the Sidi Ali El Mekki beach a great extension of golden sand often promoted in the stand of Tunisia in international fairs and events,this beach is long,wide,the sand is excellent,in front of the crystalline and uncontaminated waters of the Mediterranean,the beaches of Tunisia have this great advantage,longitude,width and quality of the sands, the sand on this beach has not gravel,it is soft like cotton, has no barriers of access,it is easily accessible and especially for its size enough space for all.Ghar El Melh is a splendid place because it has almost 7,0 km of coast.
The name Ghar El Melh from the Arab language means the cave of salt due the presence of saline,the village is located about 4,5 km of the coast,despite the beauty of the coast this town started late to be a tourist destination,it never reached the levels of Sousse,Djerba,Hammamet or also the nearest Ghammart,the main activities of Ghar El Melh has always been the fishing and the agriculture with a relevant presence of poultry and sheep farmers.Some decades ago more than half of the population was linked to these activities,
today is the fishing one of the major sources of the town thanks also the development of the new port,fishing reached since the 90s an excellent level,the enlargement of the port which can host almost 250 boats and for a town of this size and population is of course almost a record with over 1800 people dedicated to this activity.
The most important and profitable place to fish is the lagoon,the place of the old harbour that is formed by a maritime hollow area situated between the promontory of Raf Raf to the north and the plains of El Kelaat Andaluus to the south where there is the nearby village of Aousja where start a sort of periphery road which leads up to the outskirts of Tunisi in proximity of Ariana practically not far from the entrance of the national road that leads to La Marsa and La Charguia one of the first access to Halq Al Wadi,the port of the capital well known also with the name La Goulette.
The history of Ghar El Melh is very old and very interesting,simply for the chronological events which gave every time despite its small size a very cosmopolitan aspect to this town.The first settlers were the Phoenicians who landed on this coast, great sailors, craftsmen, dedicated to the manufacture of objects and the trade of the purple.The Phoenicians founded several towns in Tunisia,one of them was Ghar El Melh,that ancient population developed an important port and it was also a relevant,convenience store and a crossroads of commerce between east and west from Lebanon to the Iberian Peninsula.The town was known since the Carthaginian and Roman time as Rusucmona it was the town built in the interior of the current Ghar El Melh which have as its port Utica,an ancient settlement not far the river Medjerda, approximately 33 km North of the the ancient Carthage,Utica in that period was probably one of the most Phoenician port in the Maghreb area.
The town became soon a stronghold of the Carthaginians who continued to use the port as their predecessors until the Punic wars when Carthage fall in the wars against Rome.Previously Utica fought several times with the Greeks of Sicily but never fall.The Roman conquer privileged Carthage as capital of the province of Africa,the Roman Empire sent Greeks colonists to settle the area,there was a relevant activity,the decline of the town started from the 3rd century,this territories were considered less important than others,the fate of the town was an up and down with Berber pirates and Byzantine in the 6th century and later,until the occupation of the Vandals who anyway totally sacked the town,The golden ages of Ghar El Mehl ended and the town became a stronghold of Berber and Saracen pirates,the locals mainly lived in the interior in proximity of Aousja.
It is in the 16th century that Spain conquers this land,the King Charles V,ordered to build a fortress in 1534,that castle had a short life only 120 years,when the English Navy led by the Admiral Robert Blake destroyed the Spanish fortress it was the period of the Anglo-War when England for the trade dominion in the Mediterranean destroyed many Spanish fortresses along the Maghreb coast in Morocco,Tunisia and Algeria,including attacked and sank Iberian galleons carrying gold and valuables in the port of Cadiz and in the Canary Islands.After the devastation of the fortress Ghar El Melh came back to be once again a base for pirates,former English soldiers,Maltese and Berber pirates.Some years alter the powerful Ottoman Empire
landed on these coasts with Usta Mourad,a Dey of the Turkish Empire,a Dey in that period was the most high military level in the Turkish government with important charges in political issues many Ottomans dynasties suppressed the symbol of the Dey in many occasions due possible political reversals,they were generally figures very charismatic, are always able to create plots,for many Turkish Pacha the increase of prestige of a Dey often resulted inconvenient despite their military successes.
The Dey Usta Mourad anyway was an important figure for the town,he was a Levantin Turkish General with Genoese farther,an important and distinguished figure in that time,he repopulated Ghar El Melh with Andalusian people expelled from Spain by King Felipe III after the reforms in the 17th century,the town had a small architectural renaissance with new small houses with patios and small areas cultivated by the new settlers and the construction of several wells for the collection of water,ready for the irrigation of the fields,from the south of the Iberian Peninsula,for that the nearest area south of Ghar El Mehl is called Kelaat El Andaluus.The area became a small cosmopolitan centre with some Turkish colonies who came to establish trades and commercial activities and Berber people coming from other areas of the country.The pirates anyway were always an insidious enemy,Ghar el Melh was attacked several times.The Turkish rule was very important with the construction or of the fortress restructuring of the forts that can be seen today.
The solution came in the 19th century under rule of the Pacha Ahmed El Bey who decided to build a new defencive system around the town including a military port,further more the Pacha redeveloped the town with other colonies coming from Malta,France and Sicily.The French were in majority artisans and people engaged in small shops, the Maltese were the most numerous colony mainly traders,some of them by the new residence that the Pacha offer them dedicated themselves to smuggling,the Sicilians were mostly experienced fishermen,sailors who devoted themselves to teach the local fishing, with new modern techniques and especially in the high sea that until then had never been practised in these areas. In the 19th century when Tunisia became in 1881 a French protectorate.The situation changed radically, it was developed a strong fight against smuggling,strong customs controls many Maltese and Sicilians settlers did not accept to take the Tunisian nationality and returned to their respective countries, the city remained with the descendants of the Andalusian settlers Andalusian new French colonies and the majority ethnicity was represented by Berbers.The history of Ghar El Mehl from 1956 with the independence of Tunisia follow the country's history until today.This is the history of Ghar El Melh,there are many histories very interesting in Tunisia for the several events had this country,the Carthaginian period is the highlight because born in this corner of Africa a civilisation very important who fought against Rome for the domination in the Mediterranean but also other historical aspects are really very interesting.
The centre of Ghar El Melh is mainly developed along Avenue Bourguiba,5,5 km away from the beach,the reason is that the proximity of the river Mejerba to the port did not give the opportunity to develop an urban arrangement due the reason he high volume of water that is concentrated in the area that must often be drained.The works to improve the quality of the old port in the lagoon started in the 19th century,many attempts failed in the years 70s after several studies and projects the solution with the construction of a port and a totally new and a strong dam which protects the Kelaat El Andaluus docks, the old port is still used anyway for fishing.The coast of the town is long almost 7,0 km starting from the Cap Sidi Ali Mekki until the limit of the harbour. The rest of the population live in the interior in the rural areas dedicated to the agriculture of Zouaouine and Bejou.
The Ghar El Melh lagoon is one of the attraction of the town,not only because it was the old port,the perimeter of this area is over 20 km connected by a small canal which flows in the Mediterranean sea south of the small forest of Raf Raf situated in proximity of a sharp promontory.This area is particularly suitable for the fishing of sea bass,mullet and also heelwhich love to live at determinate temperature.Almost a quarter of the total fish caught per year in this town comes from this saltwater lagoon,the water is low, the area is humid and those kind fishes find in this place a natural habitat, in the southern part of the coast there are a couple of other small salt ponds almost adjacent to the lagoon.Some years ago the area was declared of particular interest at international level for for the biodiversity and humid area and particularly suitable for the study of zoologists specialising in fish species.
One of the historical highlights of the town is the ancient Turkish Arsenal called El Kishla you can see in the old port dating back late 17th century.Ir was in that period one of the most organised military structures of the country.The Ottoman Bey Mourad III ordered to build a long low building with vaulted arches hosting 17 galleries on the back of the port, under its arcades different activities places,the galleries were used as workshops,mainly blacksmiths,ceramic handcrafts,small shops,other galleries were for shipyards,there was also a small chapel for religious rites,two prisons one for the pirates captured during the attacks,another one for rebel slaves,some galleries were dedicated to hosts the guards and the arsenal.The arsenal was a little town in the town,the long building under the hill of Djebel Nadour was restored in the 80s after a long period of decline and abandon and today shows you perfectly how was organised an Ottoman multi purpose construction,a replica of others erected in that period in the motherland and in all the territories under Turkish rule in the 17th century.
Borj Lazarit is the fortress you can see in proximity of the entrance of the town.Built externally to a wide area paved cobblestone,it has two large ditches on its sides,a narrow central passage flanked by low walls that leads to the Bab the central entrance doorway The door has an arc reminiscent of a Mirhab, that curved section curve supported by two side stone columns that form a sort of tiny portico.The central facade is slightly more of the high and strong walls which have a series of curved and rectangular windows in the lower part of the building while narrow windows and vents are placed at the top.Erected in 1659 by the Ottoman Bey Pacha Al Hammoud,this fortress is pretty well conserved and it was used until the 19th century as an Al Karraka a prison.
Borj Al Wistani is another Ottoman fortress,older than the previous,the construction of this fortress is dated 1640,the architectonic style is in part similar to the other,with a central passage flanked by two low walls and ditches on both sides,the arcade is supported by two columns with capitols,the walls are very similar to the walls of the Alcazar of Seville you can admire flanking in the Andalusian city the famous Barrio de Santa Cruz.The he upper part of the walls are built with battlements with sharp and pointed terminals, in typical Moorish and Mudejar style from Andalusia,you see the hand and style of the architect who built the fortress an Andalusian Moorish called Al Hadj Jamiir Al Andaluus Al Ghamati,one of those immigrants
from Andalusia came in Ghar El Mehl in the 17th century.As the Borj Lazarit also this fortress was used as prison apart the defencive purposes.
The third fortress called Borj Al Loutani was built in the same period of the Borj Lazarit,lower than the others,it is situated on the road not far from the old harbour,the perimeter consists in low strong walls on the sides there are crenellated towers on the corners of the building, the entrance consists in an arched door located between a tower and a wing that housed the guardhouse, this Borj was used as base of a military division of artillery and just like the others as a prison.All these fortresses with the arsenal El Kishla were declared cultural and historic patrimony of Tunisia since 1922.During the French protectorate and for some years after the Tunisian Independence the fortresses was used as prison until the year 1964 when the President Bourguida in a meeting with his ministers decided to abolish these buildings as prisons,from there started a process of restoration which gave excellent results.
In the town you can see a low white building surrounded by a garden with a tower in the style of a low minaret of the same colour,it is the Hotel de Ville,the Town hall,built on a rectangular plan,with a blue arched doorway and windows on both side,a stoned step behind the perimeter walls leads to the entrance.
The Mosque of Ghar El Mehl is the reflects of the typical Tunisian architecture in Tunisia using the white as predominant colour,but very different as style to the most important Tunisian Mosques as the Jemaa Ez Zitouna ot Jemaa Al Qayrawan which used in many detailed elements the Andalusian and Mudejar styles,with zelig and sebka decorations daughters of the historical dynasties Nasrid,Almohads and Almohaves.In this case the Jemaa Ghar El Mehl has a very sober style and it consists in a large rectangular plan,the minaret tower erected on quadrangular square,it is attached to a part of the boundary wall,In the upper part bi are some arched windows, the upper part has a crenellated perimeter with an additional turret within a quadrangular space built on three blocks with a conical roof as terminal.The central body of the mosque is behind the minaret,arranged on a rectangular plan with low walls and surmounted by domes.
The Sidi Ali El Mekki is the Zaouia the sacred tomb of the Holy Man Said Ali El Mekki who is buried here and was one of the most prominent religious figure in the town.The Zaouia in the Muslim countries has a relevant value as pilgrimage destination and this tomb located on the hill of Al Djebal Edmina is located in a white building still used today for some religious rites.The Zaouia apart the important religious value,is historic patrimony of the country,the municipality of Ghar El Melh gave the name of the Holy Man to its beach and during the 2nd World War,it was refuge of many locals who escaped in the interior of this mausoleum due a battle in proximity of the village between German and Anglo-American troops.
In Ghar El Melh there are splendid panoramic view points for all photography lovers,in proximity of the Cap Raf Raf and its forest is a splendid place to take photos on the coastline and walking along the hill,this place is north of the old port,the Cap Sidi Ali El Mekki,Cap Farina is another great place to enjoy the spectacular Mediterranean views of this corner of Tunisia.
In July Ghar El Melh hosts an important event dedicated to the Photography,after some editions this meeting concentrated to this activity has reached an important level,with professional photographers coming from France,Italy,Germany,America and from all Tunisia,the highlight is the captivating place of the exhibition,the works are displayed in the old fortressand the beach Sidi Ali El Mekki is protagonist at evening in the event.
Ghar el Melh is a great destination,you can find several hotels in the area of Bizerte and reaching this splendid historical town is a very short time.I suggest this place if you want to enjoy a piece of history of Tunisia and its wonderful beach Sidi Ali El Mekki something unique to discover the real beauty of Tunisia.
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