La Marsa
Some photos of the cats that adopted us from the minute we moved in and our small villa by the beach.
Tunis
This page is a bit strange. I worked in Tunis for two years. I explored the historic Medina many times and wandered the labyrinthine streets. However I took very few photos. I didn’t even take many photos in the historic and lovely suburb of Sidi Bou Said where I spent many happy days wandering its alleys and drinking in its cafes and restaurants. But here are a few. This is looking up Avenue Bourguiba towards the old town. And this…
Kerkennah Islands
We’d first heard about the Kerkennah Islands from Paul Theroux’s book about his trip around the Med. Theroux is known as a crabby individual who seeks out places to visit where no one else goes – usually with good reason. He went to the Kerkennah islands for two days in winter and described them as desolate, flat and arid with dying palms and ratty fronds. However I also read the more charitable Rough Guide which informed me that many people…
Sahel
The Arabic name ‘Sahel’ means coast or margin. In the case of the sub-Saharan Sahel it is the margin of the desert, but in Tunisia it is the little bulge in its east coast. Ranging back from the east coast these fertile plains have long been the heartland of the country’s agriculture and an important power base – both Habib Bouguiba and Ben Ali come from this region, and it contains Sfax, the country’s most prosperous city. As far as…
Kairouan
‘What a hell of a place to put a holy city’, wrote the Times’ military correspondent in 1939. It’s certainly true that for a lot of the year the place bakes on its barren plain. We therefore decided to take the trip to Tunisia’s oldest Arab city and Islam’s fourth most holy city in October. We were well rewarded with certainly the most architecturally interesting city of the region and justifiably a UNESCO World Heritage site. We didn’t stay in…
North West Tunisia
This was a trip we did driving along the north coast to Tabarka, then heading south to the Roman ruins of Bulla Regia, onto El Kef and then stopping off at more Roman ruins at Dougga before heading home. All in five days in Spring 2004. We headed off on Monday 5th April. It was a glorious day’s drive across the north coast amid green rolling hills carpeted with wild flowers. We passed through a small forest before arriving in…
Ksour
Our second Tunisian holiday was between Christmas and New Year. The weather was awful in Tunis so we headed south in the expectation of a bit of warmth and sun. We were in for a rude surprise – we got a bit of sun but it was bitingly cold. The region that dips its toe down into the depths of the Sahara between Algeria and Libya is known as the Ksour and throughout history has been known for its lawlessness…
Ramadan in El Jerid
Finally we had got settled in Tunis and by November 2003 we were ready for our first trip into the country taking advantage of the Ramadan holiday. I’m not sure why, but we chose the Jerid area – an arid land in the South West of the country. The guide book description hardly makes it the most romantic of getaways, “The Jerid is an arid land of bare pink hills punctuated by mining towns and sporadic oases – villages built…