By David Wickers, 101 Holidays editor

Cheap flights are coming to Tunis. After years of negotiations, Tunisia has joined the Open Skies agreement, allowing US, European and Arabic airlines to operate freely within its airspace. This paves the way for low-cost carriers to compete with Tunisair to the capital Tunis and other destinations.

A new airport, Enfidha, is set to open on the coast near Tunis towards the end of this year, boosting access to one of the Med’s most underrated – and unvisited – cities.

Here are my top 6 things to do when you get there:

THE SOUK

The souk in Tunis is a fascinating, historic maze of traders, segmented into different areas according to skills. Browse, bargain and buy, then take a glass of mint tea, flavoured with pine kernels, at the ancient Café M’Rabet, Arabic music oozing, you lounging on a straw mat.

THE BARDO

The Bardo is home to the world’s finest collection of Roman mosaics housed in a late 18th century palace. These exquisite, 2000-year-old snapshots of daily life are mainly focused on pleasure; drinking, playing dice, fishing, hunting, wrestling, dancing and eating – although one poor lad is shown from the waist down being swallowed by a fish.

CRAFT EMPORIUM

Take a late afternoon paseo along the leafy, paved central reservation of the city’s grand boulevard, Avenue Habib Bourguiba, an Arabian Ramblas complete with flower sellers. Les Maisons de l’Artisanat Tunisien (half way along, south side) is a 3-storey craft shop and the place to check on prices – which are fixed – before haggling in the souk.

SIDI BOU SAID

The prettiest village in Tunis, an Arabian Capri with white villas, pale blue doors, frilly iron window grills and flowers everywhere. It’s linked to the city centre by an efficient light railway, the TGM.

CARTHAGE

The pillagers have taken most of it (some of the stone was even shipped to Italy as hardcore) and the sprawl of suburbia has engulfed much of the rest, but Hannibal’s birthplace, in parts, still resonates. The most impressive sight is the Antonine Baths, all the more so when you realise that what you see today were merely the basement workings.

MEAL TO REMEMBER

My favourite restaurant in Tunis is Dar El Jeld, an opulent, exotically tiled, 18th-century house run by the original aristocratic owners. Try the brik, a deep fried, wafer-thin pastry shell filled with egg, finely minced lamb and parsley. The trick is to see if you can eat it without the yolk dribbling down your chin.