Tunis

If your destination is southern Italy, or you are happy to continue by road or rail from Sicily, the Palermo crossing halves your time at sea and can cost a fraction of the northern routes. From Palermo there are onward ships to Naples, Genoa and Civitavecchia.

The catch is frequency. With only a couple of sailings in our timetable it will not fit every date, and the northern routes exist precisely because they run often enough to be planned around. But it is worth ten minutes of checking before you accept twenty-five hours at sea.

Ferries dock at La Goulette, roughly 10 km from central Tunis at the mouth of the lake. The terminal has been upgraded and has shops, food and banking facilities, which is more than several European ports on these same routes manage.

Getting into the city is straightforward: taxis are plentiful, and the TGM light rail runs the length of the causeway into Tunis frequently through the day. That rail link is unusual — very few ferry ports anywhere have a train from the quay to the capital.

Like every crossing between North Africa and Europe, the traffic here is dominated by cars, vans and family cargo rather than foot passengers with cabin bags. Vehicle deck space is what sells out, and it sells out first in the summer season.

Bring the vehicle registration document and expect a temporary import formality on arrival. Customs on this route takes time in both directions, and considerably more of it in July and August than in April.

There is no land route from Tunisia to Europe. Unlike Morocco, where the Strait is fifteen kilometres wide and the crossings are hourly, Tunisia's connection to Europe is a long sea passage or a flight — and a flight does not carry a car.

That is why these ships are large, comfortable and expensive by Mediterranean standards, and why they run all year. For anyone moving between Tunisia and Europe with a vehicle, there is no alternative to compare against.

Tunis is immediately behind the port: the medina is UNESCO-listed and among the best preserved in North Africa, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said sit on the same coastal rail line as La Goulette, and the Bardo museum holds the Roman mosaics.

For onward travel, the motorway network runs south toward Sousse and Sfax and west toward Algeria, and the main railway starts in the city.

Summer is the peak in both directions, driven by the same seasonal movement that fills the Spanish and Moroccan ports. Late July southbound and late August northbound are the two hardest windows on this corridor.

Outside those weeks, availability is reasonable and fares drop sharply. Spring and autumn crossings are also the calmer ones — a twenty-five-hour passage in a winter Tyrrhenian is a long time to be uncomfortable.

All the main routes operate year round because they are the country's link to Europe rather than a holiday product. Frequency thickens from June to September and thins in winter without stopping.

The Palermo crossing is the most variable of the group, so if it is central to your plan, confirm the sailing rather than assuming the route runs on your dates.