Why should I go? It’s not often that the opening of a 12-room hotel sends a capital city soaring to the top of our list of must-dos, but that’s exactly what has happened to Tunis. The Dar El Medina is not just a stylish boutique bolt hole — it’s the first time a private home within the Unesco-protected old town has opened its doors to paying guests.

In the past, you would have been taken into the medina by a guide, where you would have visited a few old buildings before the obligatory tat-touting shops. Not that much fun. Now you can stroll through streets hardly touched by tourism, listen to the call of the muezzin and watch the sunset from your roof terrace.

The streets of the medina have changed little in the past 500 years, with narrow passageways leading to mosques, fragrant courtyards and mausoleums. Behind heavy, studded wooden doors stand dozens of dars — grand merchants’ homes that date back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Many are now being restored as opulent restaurants to showcase one of the Mediterranean’s most sophisticated and underrated cuisines.

Where do I stay? Dar El Medina (00 216-71 563022, www.darelmedina.com) is a couple of minutes’ walk from the souks and the Great Mosque. Standard doubles cost £75, but it’s worth upgrading to a £96 chambre d’apparat. Both prices include a lavish all-day breakfast of fresh orange juice, bread, cheese, egg, pastries and sweet almond cake. Take mint tea in the sitting room, under ornate carved stucco and painted ceilings, or on the roof terrace, in alcoves littered with plump cushions.

Where do I eat? On the edge of the medina, Dar El Jeld (71 560916) occupies a splendid 18th-century house and is regularly cited as Tunisia’s best restaurant. The French-influenced cooking is good, and the surroundings are impressive, but aloof staff and high prices — £50 for two with wine — are easily bettered elsewhere.

A few doors from Dar El Medina, the newly opened Dar Hamouda Pacha (71 566584) offers superb tagines and fish couscous, with live malouf music at weekends. But top of the pile is Dar Bel Hadj (71 200894), where you dine in a palatial room and pay about £40 for two. For seafood, head to Chez Slah (71 258588; about £35 for two), in the new town, where the spaghetti fruits de mer is superb.

What do I do? You don’t need a guide to explore the medina, just a good book — the Rough Guide to Tunisia (£12.99) — and a compass. Start in the souks, where the “noble” trades are clustered around the walls of the Great Mosque. Most colourful is Souk des Chéchias, where craftsmen spend hours brushing the country’s distinctive red-felt caps into shape. Top-notch ones cost about £6; don’t make the mistake of calling them fezes.

The Gold Souk, with vaulted brick ceilings and heavy wooden doors that are locked every night, was a slave market until the middle of the 18th century, and in the surrounding shops, you can find “secret” rooms built as holding areas for slaves before they were sent to market.

On Rue Sidi Ben Arous, duck into Ed Dar (71 561732), a sprawling 400-year-old house converted into a superb antiques shop-cum-museum by Ali Chammakhi. Ask to see the roof terrace and the collection of bakhnougs, or Berber wedding shawls — priced from £320.

If you’re not Muslim, you can’t enter the Great Mosque, but if you arrive before noon (except on Fridays) and pay 80p, you can view the vast courtyard, lined with elegant arcades. Stop for an espresso at M’rabet, an atmospheric cafe at Souk Et-Trouk.

It would also be a crime to miss Dar Ben Abdallah, a beautifully restrained palace containing a museum of domestic life, and Tourbet el Bey, an eerily crowded royal mausoleum in need of some TLC and restoration.

Outside the medina, visit the Bardo Museum, home to one of the world’s finest collections of Roman mosaics, situated within a grand Arabesque palace. Entry costs £2.40; taxis from the medina are about £2 each way. And take a ride on the TGM suburban line, too. Trains leave every 20 minutes from the toytown-sized station off Avenue Habib Bourguiba. Second stop is Carthage, with an eerie cemetery, a ruined harbour, and a museum. The atmosphere is arresting, but little remains of the once powerful Punic port.

The penultimate stop, about 30 minutes from Tunis, is picturesque Sidi Bou Saïd. This arty haven has fine views over the Gulf of Tunis, cool cafes and craft shops, and the Dar Ennejma Ezzahra — a fabulous house-cum-folly built by a French baron. Finally, take another break on the way back at the main street in La Goulette, where locals swarm for sensational fish suppers.

How do I get there? Tunisair (020 7734 7644, www.tunisair.com) flies from Heathrow, and British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) from Gatwick; both from about £150. Wigmore Holidays (020 7836 4999, www.aspectsoftunisia.co.uk) has three nights at Dar El Medina for £535pp in March, including flights. The Residence (£615) and Dar Said (£535) are coastal hotels within half an hour’s drive, also through Wigmore. Or try Cadogan Holidays (0800 082 1006, www.cadoganholidays.com).

Mark Hodson travelled as a guest of Wigmore Holidays

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