Sousse

Sousse is an authentic city, not made for the benefit of tourists like Hammamet e.g., which makes it a unique experience to visit, if you care to venture beyond the safety of the guarded hotels... Especially the marketplace(Medina) is really special, if you get there early, you'll see local merchants selling spices, fish and vegetables, oppose to the overwhelming amount of "modern" merchants selling fake LV, Gucci etc. You're expected to haggle over the price, and you need to be tough, mind you, they will cheat you if you let them (they'll probably cheat you either way, but haggling is fun!).

Quick Tips:

First time I went to Sousse was with a female friend, and it was definitely not recommendable. Tunisia is very different to western countries, especially regarding the view upon women. (I'm not trying to start a war on religion here, but unfortunately, this is reality). We had a lot of unpleasant encounters with local boys/men, who wouldn't leave us alone, and who actually grabbed our arms to the extent where we had visible blue bruises several places. We were verbally assaulted numerous times every day, and at the end of our stay we hardly left our hotel for anything else than going to the beach across the road.
However, my experience travelling to Sousse with my boyfriend, is quite different. I was treated with great respect, and only a few cheeky waiters made comments about him being a very lucky man, asking if we were married, etc. I would definitely recommend the destination to couples, or families, but NOT groups of girls, travelling alone.
A note to especially European travellers, please do not sunbathe topless, in Sousse, as well as any Muslim destination. It is respectless, and will be frowned upon, even if the locals are too polite to tell you. And dress appropriately when walking the streets, no bikini tops and stuff like that.

Best Way To Get Around:

Best way to get around is definitely by cab, but mind you, they'll cheat you too, if you don't keep your eyes open... The main guideline:
-If the cabbie says the meter's not working, get out of the cab. He's only trying to get you to agree to a fixed price, which will be 10 times higher than the actual cost. We never payed much more than 5 dinars (6) for a cab ride, and neither should you!

We stayed at Coralia Club Sousse, in Aug. 2006, and overall, it was satisfactory.

It's an all inclusive resort, which is a great concept, but unfortunately the selection of foods in the "cantina"(lots of tables just thrown in to a big room and a buffet) didn't vary at all during the week we spent there. This was the main reason that we ate out at least once a day, rice and curry is nice, but not twice a day, every day in a week... (same selection at lunch and dinner). On the bonus side, it was great to just get free drinks, really makes you drink the recommended amount of water, that you can get cold water for free, all the time.

Coralia Club is probably mostly a family resort, there's entertainment all day, and most of the night. We didn't enjoy this at all, as our room (with a beautiful seaview, which we enjoyed) was situated right at the "animation" stage, and the entertainment rarely ended before 12pm. When it's really hot, you tend to wake up early, so it kind of ruins the next day if you go to sleep too late. We had to take a nap every day at midday, or we couldn't stay awake the entire day(mind you, we're only in our 20's...).

The facilities are great, we both had massages at the spa, which was awesome, you gotta love a $20 full body massage! And the beach is great too, they clean it every morning, so it's not filthy at all. There's quite a lot of vendors at the beach, and even though you're usually a well mannered person, it's necessary to shout at them, in order to make them go away. This may seem harsh, but they just don't understand nice.

The location was okay, it was a long walk to the centre of town, but only a $1 cab ride. All the streets in Sousse are one way, which you need to keep in mind when hailing a cab, or it could turn out to be a very long ride.

It was a nice hotel, but definitely not suited for a romantic getaway, more a family with kids below the age of 13.

This was a really amazing restaurant, in Port el Khantaoui. As we stayed in Sousse, we took a cab up there, and it was well worth it. It takes about 15 minutes, and will cost you like 5$.
The restaurant is situated right at the waterfront, in the Port area, really beautiful (see picture), and naturally the seafood is fresh off the fishermen's boats.
We had 2 dishes each, fish and steaks, and it was truly wonderful. I had seabass as my main course, and it was cooked to perfection! My boyfriend has steak, which was really a treat too.
The service is magnificent, as you would expect when the prices are quadouble what they usually are in Tunisia, and the whole evening was absolutely perfect. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to everyone going to Sousse or Port El Khantaoui, it's really worth it. Best meal we had all week.