Skanes

Tunisian coastal resort suburb south of Monastir, dominated by beach hotels and package-holiday infrastructure.

Skanes is a coastal suburb 8km south of Monastir, dominated by a string of large beach resort hotels. The beaches are well-maintained, the water clean, and watersports are widely available — but this is very much package-holiday Tunisia rather than local life. Beach vendors can be persistent.

If you want a feel for the real Tunisia, make the short trip to Monastir's old medina and ribat. Better still, head inland to Kairouan, one of the great cities of the Islamic world, or to Tunis or Sfax for something altogether less resort-like.

Guide

Day Trips

Skanes makes a workable base for the central Tunisian Sahel. Monastir's ribat and old medina are a five-minute taxi ride. Sousse, half an hour up the coast by the Sahel metro, has a much bigger medina and the Ribat and Great Mosque inside it. Kairouan, an hour inland, is the most important religious city in the Maghreb and worth the trip on its own. El Jem, the colossal Roman amphitheatre, is about ninety minutes south.

Guide

Getting There

Monastir–Habib Bourguiba International Airport sits at the western end of the Skanes strip — most hotels are a five-to-ten minute transfer from arrivals. The airport receives summer charter and low-cost flights from across Europe, with the schedule thinning sharply outside the May–October beach season.

The Sahel metro (a coastal commuter rail line) runs through Skanes and links the resort to Monastir town in under ten minutes and to Sousse in about thirty. The Skanes-Monastir airport halt is a short walk from the terminal. Trains are cheap, frequent in daylight hours, and the easiest way to get into either city without bargaining for a taxi.

Guide

Things to Do

Skanes is fundamentally a beach strip — the things to do here are sun, sand, and watersports, plus easy excursions to Monastir's old town and the great inland sites of the Tunisian Sahel. Don't expect cultural sights within Skanes itself; the resort grew up around a string of hotels in the 1970s rather than from any old core.