Djerba is Tunisia's largest island and its most layered. Whitewashed villages and fortress mosques earned it a UNESCO listing in 2023, El Ghriba is the oldest synagogue in Africa, Erriadh is a street art museum in the open air, and the east coast is one long shallow beach. Give it four days and a hire car.
Most visitors arrive on a package flight and stay on the sand at Sidi Mahrez. The island rewards anyone who drives inland: potters at Guellala, a Roman causeway to the mainland, and a Star Wars cantina still standing in a fishing village.
Held to be the oldest synagogue in Africa, on a site used for Jewish worship for around 2,500 years, though the building you walk into dates from the late 19th century. Blue tiles, low arches and a congregation that still prays here. Expect a security check at the gate.
In 2014 the Itinerrance gallery brought about 150 artists from 30 countries to spray more than 250 murals onto Erriadh's whitewashed walls, and a second wave added more in 2022. Some have weathered badly, which is part of the point. Park at the edge and walk the side lanes.
The island's main town and its market: covered lanes of silver, wool and spice, caravanserais turned into cafes, and the fish auction down at the harbour. Monday and Thursday mornings are the weekly souk, when the place trades for locals rather than performing for visitors.
Ottoman work over an older Spanish castle, and the best preserved fort on the island. A monument built of Spanish skulls from the 1560 battle stood on the shore beside it until 1848. The ramparts hand you the harbour, the fishing fleet and the north coast in one turn.
Djerba's clay village, and still a working one: wheels turning in open sheds, amphorae stacked along the road, wood-fired kilns out the back. Buy here rather than in the Houmt Souk tourist shops. Djerbi, the island's Berber language, is what you will hear on this street.
A working sponge and octopus port, and the streets George Lucas dressed as Mos Eisley in April 1976. The cantina exterior was a bakery and is now a ruin; the hut used as Obi-Wan's home sits about 3 km north on the Sidi Jmour road. Neither is signposted.
Three things on one site: a crocodile farm holding several hundred Nile crocodiles, the Lalla Hadria museum of Islamic art, and a reconstructed Djerban village. It is the island's one answer to a wet day and the most reliable stop with small children.
A fortress in the shape of a mosque: blunt white walls, a stubby minaret and cisterns inside, built to hold out against a raid from the sea. Dated to 1279 and restored, it is the clearest example of the defensive architecture that got the island its UNESCO listing.
A sandspit rather than an island, reached by the pirate-ship boats that leave Houmt Souk port in the morning and return mid-afternoon. Flamingos feed here between November and March and are gone all summer, so book it for the water and the sandbar, not the birds.
A white marabout on an empty stretch of the west coast, used as a Star Wars location and still the best place on Djerba to watch the sun go down. Nothing here but the shrine, the rocks and a few fishing boats.
Africa’s oldest synagogue, still in use, at the centre of a spring pilgrimage.
The Ottoman fort on the Houmt Souk waterfront, and the island’s best preserved.
Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, and a working market rather than a souvenir one.
Waist-deep flat water over a wide lagoon, which is why the schools cluster here.
Shallow, forgiving water on the southeast tip, with reliable afternoon wind.
Fortified granaries, then a village stacked up a ridge in the ksour country.
Lag BaOmer, 33 days after Passover. Jewish pilgrims from across the world converge on Erriadh, under heavy security.
Daytime cafes close and the island runs late into the night. Hotel restaurants keep normal hours throughout.
The end of Ramadan. Families travel home, the ferry queues build, and workshops shut for two or three days.
Horse parades, folk music and a staged traditional wedding through the island’s second town.
Sheep are bought and slaughtered at home. Expect a quiet island and closed workshops for several days.
A national holiday. Offices and museums close for the day; the beaches carry on as normal.
Concerts, dance and theatre across Houmt Souk, named for the Odyssey stop the island claims.
Kilns lit, demonstrations and stalls the length of the potters’ street on the south coast.
The island has its own airport, at Mellita about 9 km from Houmt Souk, and it is how most visitors arrive. There is no airport bus: take a taxi or a transfer booked with your hotel.
Car ferries cross the western strait between Ajim and El Jorf through the day, roughly every half hour. Foot passengers travel free and cars pay a token fare in dinars.
The Roman causeway runs about 7 km from the island’s southeast corner across to Zarzis. It is the only road link, there is no toll, and it is the sane way in with a hire car.
Yellow metered taxis are cheap and everywhere in Houmt Souk. Regional buses link the three towns from the Houmt Souk station, but a hire car is what makes the interior reachable.
Caught in clay gargoulettes off the coast, then grilled with little more than oil.
Grilled peppers and tomatoes crushed with garlic and oil, topped with tuna.
The island’s own dish: rice steamed in a couscoussier with octopus or lamb and herbs.
Grouper or sea bass over semolina, with the fish sauce cooked separately.
Fish stewed with tomato, capers, olives and preserved lemon.
A whole egg folded into pastry and fried. Eat it fast and lean forward.
Eggs broken into tomato and harissa, usually with merguez in the pan.
A ring doughnut fried to order and rolled in sugar, sold at the souk.
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