Visit sunny Tunisia and play Tabarka Golf Course on the much talked about Coral Coast. The golf course can be compared with the best, and the prices are wallet-friendly to say the least.

In Tunisia, they are approximately 700 golfers. Seven hundred… in the entire country, spread over a dozen or so golf courses. All with the advantage that they are located in a country with an average temperature that is spelled holiday weather.

Tunisia is a great country for a golf vacation in. Not very expensive either. For example, a restaurant visit is also wallet-friendly.

Yes, Tabarka. A small town around a marina and a first-rate beach. No place for 23 year olds with “party hard” as a life philosophy, but incredibly good diving water for those who like that kind of thing. The coral reefs are just waiting below the waves. The Tabarka Jazz Festival is arranged every year, a well-known event in the jazz world. There are a few hotels in town but most are located a one-minute walk east of the centre of what is known as the tourist area. And, right next to the hotel, the Tabarka Golf Course.

Since most tourists go to the tourist resorts of Hammamet and Sousse, south of the capital Tunis, most golfers end up there. Something that helps the course in Tabarka escape the really intense pressure, even during high season. It’s one of those courses where you can take advantage of an all-day green fee. That is, play eighteen holes, eat lunch at the grand club house and then a bit later play nine or eighteen more holes.

When we scrape the frost from the windows on the car or realize that we forgot the scarf that would stop the snow from whirling on our necks, golf is at its best in Tabarka. Then it's 24 degrees and partly cloudy or 26 degrees and clear blue. In the winter the average temperature is 19-20 degrees with five to six of sunshine, as if made for a round of golf in other words. During the summer you get twelve hours of sunshine with an average temperature of thirty degrees. The course is also really great.

It is anyway precisely this type of hole that you dream about when you sit with mittens and long to pick up your driver…challenging and beautiful. There is something conciliatory in foolishly missing an approach when the water hazard you land in is called the Mediterranean Sea and which in turn is called the Tunisian Coral Coast.

Course designer Ronald Fream - international giant who actually has designed most of Tunisia’s courses - has created a course with a lot of variation. Parkland course, woodland course and seaside course together in eighteen holes is not common.

In the evening you are treated to Tunisian dinners. Lamb sausages, stews and mixes of unknown types attract. The Tunisian cuisine has its roots in a mixture of European and Oriental traditions.

Before each meal harissa is served, the strong and most characteristic spice, the dish with olive oil and bread to be dipped in. The taste of harissa is consistent in many dishes. The basis for many meals otherwise is couscous, small grains of wheat, that is often served with lamb, but also with other meat. Brik, something between an omelet and a pancake, is often served too.

After dinner you can always take a boukha, fig brandy. How does it taste? Exactly as it sounds…

The area around Tabarka is very green most of the year, not the image one might have of Tunisia. Although it’s only a few hours’ drive to the Sahara desert from Tabarka, there are lakes, forests and farming. You can fly to Tunis and then travel by car, bus or train the 2-3 hours to Tabarka.

The journey is really interesting. The motorway is under construction, but many still drive on slow and sometimes winding roads. We pass vineyards - even if most of those in Tunisia are located in the northeast - and olive groves. The melon field is lit up and in many places people are selling fresh fruit for a few dinars.

Text: Ola Liljedahl
Photo: Ulf Berglund
Web Editor:  Emma Lindén