But then the sun came out, bringing this charming small town of Sidi Bou Said ... a suburb of
Tunis ... into sharp focus. It is, quite simply, one of the most picturesque places I have ever seen. Sidi Bou is famous, justifiably, for its blue and white colour scheme. All buildings, without exception, are painted a dazzling white. All architectural accents -- magnificent arched doorways, fanciful iron grillwork, latticework porticoes overhanging the street -- are painted in subtle variations of the same vivid sky blue. If that weren't striking enough, this is all complemented by the distinctive keyhole arches, domes, minarets and geometric patterning of arab architecture, draped with lush bouganvilla and given depth and dimension by the way the town spirals up its seaside hill. Add a backdrop of ocean and mountains glimpsed at the end of streets or over garden walls, and you have to admit that you've wandered into a landscape painting. It's all just a bit too pretty to be real.Our hotel, the Dar Said, extends that fairy tale. It is essentially an Arabic-inspired palace, with opulently decorated rooms wrapping around cool, white marble courtyards full of exotic plants and fountains gurgling merrily. Bedrooms vary widely in decor and size; mine had tall louvred doors opening onto a roof terrace with views over the town.
The hotel wraps itself around a glimmering blue pool, its pool deck enhanced with the decorative Tunisian tiles we would soon learn were ubiquitous throughout the country. You can take your breakfast here and gaze down upon the bay of Tunis, with the ruins of ancient Carthage and the sprawl of modern Tunis both visible. There's also a garden on a lower level, with white marble paths running through formal green parterres, sharing the same view and surrounded by the property's walls so entirely private.
One of the glories of Sidi Bou Said in general, and the Dar Said in specific, is the quiet. Like most Mediterranean cities, Tunis is a bustling and brash, exciting and noisy. Here, you're within reach of the excitement, yet withdrawn into a soothing bubble like some enchanted potentate from the Arabian Nights.
We didn't linger too much here on the first day, however. A week was already starting to seem a criminally short time to spend in Tunisia. Our movements plus different attractions' closed days dictated that Sunday would be the day for the Bardo Museum.
The Bardo is acclaimed for having the finest collection of Roman mosaic floors in the world, pulled from civic and residential ruins across what was once the capital of Rome's Africa province and the bread basket of the empire. Your first few minutes in the Bardo, however, you might find this difficult to believe. The building was once the Bey's palace and, though large, is looking more than a bit weather beaten on the outside. There is no clear, dramatic entry into the place. Even the door that appears to be the main one leads into a dim and unimpressive hall. The first room off this is filled with early Christian mosaics; interesting enough, but clearly from a time when the whole art form was in decline.
The secret: get upstairs immediately. The architecture and the mosaics get very impressive, very quickly. Both the number and the artistic virtuousity of the mosaics here are beyond belief. The closest I've seen is the museum in Naples, which is dwarfed by the Bardo. There are mosaics here of beguiling complexity, with vines or geometric patterns enclosing rondels of animals or people. Fish were a popular theme, with many floors depicting underwater scenes with scores of different piscine species. Hunting scenes were equally abundant, some almost a pictorial encyclopedia of different animals, some showing hunts in progress and some showing animals at their ease in nature.
Several mosaics showed buildings or scenes of everyday human habitation, giving some sense of what life must have been like. And, of course, there were endless scenes from mythology: Theseus and the minotaur at the centre of a complex labyrinth, Hercules surrounded by depictions of his labours and enough detailed depictions of Dionysus amongst his grape vines to pave a score of dining rooms.
If you can tear your eyes from the exhibits, some of the rooms themselves are spectacular, particularly the ceilings. There's some sculpture and a nice collection of Greek bronzes hauled up from a shipwreck, both collections of which would be star sights in most other museums. But here, the mosaics rule.
After this we took a taxi back to the centre of town, strolling up the main avenue and stopping first for a drink, then for a snack. I tried the much-written-about local tea, which had a lot less mint and a lot more sugar than anticipated. We then tried tuna and cheese crepes. Unlike the French tradition, these were folded into a square and left to grill for so long that they came to resemble toasted sandwiches. Not the greatest street food I've ever had, but we were starving and it went down a treat.
It took about an hour of train transport, walking and waiting to get back to our hotel. Once there we retired to the courtyard occupied by the swimming pool and took a table with an expansive view of the sea, drinking a bottle of wine and enjoying a quiet punctuated only by the dusk call to prayer ringing
out from the nearby minaret.
After that interlude, we washed, dressed and headed out to Le Grand Blu, a restaurant about 15 minutes down the coast recommended by our tour coordinator. It was "assez bien" ... Good, but nothing hugely memorable. It's a big place, of modern construction but traditional design, built on a cliff face. It clearly has amazing views looking over the water to Sidi Bou Said, but as it was after dark we didn't benefit much from these. We opted for the meze, a mix of shared plates that included several types of fried fish, several grilled and a plate of pene pasta in tomato sauce with shrimp and caviar that was by far the best thing on the table. The meal probably would have been elevated several levels if they would have brought out a couple of dishes at a time, giving us a chance to sample a progression. By placing everything on the table at once, 1/3 was lukewarm and another 1/3 close to cold by the time you tucked in. There was also a complete absence of vegetables, so not a particularly balanced meal. But good service, tasty food and a bottle of wine between us in one of the area's nicest restaurants for the equivalent of £20 per person, so we're certainly not complaining.
And thus ended day 1.
We didn't linger too much here on the first day, however. A week was already starting to seem a criminally short time to spend in Tunisia. Our movements plus different attractions' closed days dictated that Sunday would be the day for the Bardo Museum.
The Bardo is acclaimed for having the finest collection of Roman mosaic floors in the world, pulled from civic and residential ruins across what was once the capital of Rome's Africa province and the bread basket of the empire. Your first few minutes in the Bardo, however, you might find this difficult to believe. The building was once the Bey's palace and, though large, is looking more than a bit weather beaten on the outside. There is no clear, dramatic entry into the place. Even the door that appears to be the main one leads into a dim and unimpressive hall. The first room off this is filled with early Christian mosaics; interesting enough, but clearly from a time when the whole art form was in decline.
The secret: get upstairs immediately. The architecture and the mosaics get very impressive, very quickly. Both the number and the artistic virtuousity of the mosaics here are beyond belief. The closest I've seen is the museum in Naples, which is dwarfed by the Bardo. There are mosaics here of beguiling complexity, with vines or geometric patterns enclosing rondels of animals or people. Fish were a popular theme, with many floors depicting underwater scenes with scores of different piscine species. Hunting scenes were equally abundant, some almost a pictorial encyclopedia of different animals, some showing hunts in progress and some showing animals at their ease in nature.
Several mosaics showed buildings or scenes of everyday human habitation, giving some sense of what life must have been like. And, of course, there were endless scenes from mythology: Theseus and the minotaur at the centre of a complex labyrinth, Hercules surrounded by depictions of his labours and enough detailed depictions of Dionysus amongst his grape vines to pave a score of dining rooms.
If you can tear your eyes from the exhibits, some of the rooms themselves are spectacular, particularly the ceilings. There's some sculpture and a nice collection of Greek bronzes hauled up from a shipwreck, both collections of which would be star sights in most other museums. But here, the mosaics rule.
After this we took a taxi back to the centre of town, strolling up the main avenue and stopping first for a drink, then for a snack. I tried the much-written-about local tea, which had a lot less mint and a lot more sugar than anticipated. We then tried tuna and cheese crepes. Unlike the French tradition, these were folded into a square and left to grill for so long that they came to resemble toasted sandwiches. Not the greatest street food I've ever had, but we were starving and it went down a treat.
It took about an hour of train transport, walking and waiting to get back to our hotel. Once there we retired to the courtyard occupied by the swimming pool and took a table with an expansive view of the sea, drinking a bottle of wine and enjoying a quiet punctuated only by the dusk call to prayer ringing
out from the nearby minaret.After that interlude, we washed, dressed and headed out to Le Grand Blu, a restaurant about 15 minutes down the coast recommended by our tour coordinator. It was "assez bien" ... Good, but nothing hugely memorable. It's a big place, of modern construction but traditional design, built on a cliff face. It clearly has amazing views looking over the water to Sidi Bou Said, but as it was after dark we didn't benefit much from these. We opted for the meze, a mix of shared plates that included several types of fried fish, several grilled and a plate of pene pasta in tomato sauce with shrimp and caviar that was by far the best thing on the table. The meal probably would have been elevated several levels if they would have brought out a couple of dishes at a time, giving us a chance to sample a progression. By placing everything on the table at once, 1/3 was lukewarm and another 1/3 close to cold by the time you tucked in. There was also a complete absence of vegetables, so not a particularly balanced meal. But good service, tasty food and a bottle of wine between us in one of the area's nicest restaurants for the equivalent of £20 per person, so we're certainly not complaining.
And thus ended day 1.
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