Gafsa

Gafsa is best known for two things: its Roman thermal pools — still bubbling at 32 °C in the city centre — and its phosphate mining, which makes it one of Tunisia's main industrial regions.

It's also the gateway to the cinematic mountain oases of Chebika, Tamerza and Mides on the Algerian border, where palm groves cling to canyon walls and waterfalls appear out of bare rock.

Above Gafsa, the Jugurtha Plateau and the small Roman site of Capsa give a sense of how strategic this oasis was for crossing the desert.