Ideally situated in central Sousse, a few minutes walk to the beach, the Medina and right on top of many great restaurants and coffee shops.
The hubbub and noise of the city was one of our favourite parts of our stay and chilling out at the end of a busy day exploring, with the balcony door open, hearing locals chatting, wafts of music floating in was really comforting and homely-feeling.
The staff at the front desk greeted us each time we left or arrived back, and we felt that we were looked after in this way.
The recommendation for local restaurant was also great, and by the third day we felt really at home, and settled. The room was clean and obviously recently redecorated. We felt it was traditional enough to give us a flavour of local decorative taste.
Our holiday was about getting to know the place not in a shiny resort, to interact with local people and support local trades and economy, and staying here enabled us to do that perfectly.
Local spots we loved: La Caleche restaurant (practically next door).
Little corner shop opposite for water and sweet snacks.
Presse Cafe - great coffee just round the corner. Visited them frequently!
Street food place next to the Change on the main street -excellent tabouna and Lebanese flatbread.
3am Salem - Street vendor selling gorgeous sweet treats (Pistachio Libanese-yum) across the main road, near the theatre.
We visited all the Instagram spots such as El Seles, Café Ajdad, Restaurant Du Peuple and Cafe Kasbah and enjoyed the food immensely everywhere we went. Portions are huge and it's good, home cooked meals, always with added bread, olives, salad, samosas, harissa and oil dip.
The train station is also within easy reach of Hotel Monia and we made sure to make the most of the insanely cheap transport to visit Monastir on a day when we felt we needed a more chill experience.
The train station is also within easy reach of Hotel Monia and we made sure to make the most of the insanely cheap transport to visit Monastir on a day when we felt we needed a more chill experience.
The one thing that would've made the room even better would have been the provision of a little kettle so we could have made tea for ourselves in the mornings.
In general, Sousse is a very smoky place. EVERYONE smokes, everywhere, indoors and out. We found this really difficult at times very devout non smokers but we learned to time our evening meals slightly earlier to avoid lots of people smoking during mealtimes. That said, the hotel wasn't smoky, except when smoke wafted in from the street when we had our balcony door/window open, but this wasn't for long or repeated much and it didn't smell of smoke inside at all. No air freshener smell either to mask it, just neutral.