Byrsa is the low hill at the heart of ancient Carthage and the site, according to legend, of the city's foundation by the Phoenician queen Dido. The hill held the citadel of Punic Carthage and was the centre of the last desperate defence during the Third Punic War in 146 BC — when Roman troops finally took it, after months of street-fighting, they put the city to the torch and reportedly sold the surviving population into slavery.
The Romans rebuilt Carthage as a colonial capital and Byrsa again became the administrative centre. Today the top of the hill is occupied by the Carthage National Museum and the former French cathedral (the Acropolium), and the upper terraces still have substantial Punic-era foundations exposed by 20th-century French excavations. The views are exceptional in every direction — south over the lagoons of Tunis, east to the Mediterranean, north to the white-and-blue village of Sidi Bou Said.