The Bay of Tunis

We paid the Capitainerie at Bizerte a princely 132 Dinars for our six night stay. This equates to about £9 a day for mooring, water and electricity. We also completed formalities with the Garde National. The young chap we dealt with didn’t know what to do and had to be advised by the Douane. What he had to do amounted to writing on a scrap of paper who we were, our official number and where we were going! It’s all good work for the working man to do!
It was a pleasant trip with bacon sarnies for breakfast and a feeling of wellbeing. From Bizerte to the Bay of Tunis the coastal shrub clad hills are progressively scattered with a patchwork of cultivated fields. The fertile Oued Medjerda river delta and valley, once the granary of Phoenicia and Rome and still agriculturally important today, hove into sight to the west as soon as we had rounded Cap Farina into the Bay. The region owes much to the Arab immigrants who arrived from Andalucía in the 17th and 18th centuries. Besides cereals and vegetables they began to grow almonds, figs, citrus fruit and grapes. The coastal belt becomes increasingly developed with fashionable holiday resorts frequented mainly by the well off Tunisians as we sailed south towards Tunis but the development is sympathetic with the surroundings.
We were berthed in the Marina, said to be the most expensive in Tunisia at £16 per night all inclusive, with Sidi Bou Said looking charming up on the hill above us with its whitewashed houses and blue mashrabiya shutters, balconies and doors.
Formalities with the Police involved giving the Officer 100 cigarettes ‘Backshish’. This is perfectly normal in southern Tunisia and, as in our case, may be requested blatantly. It is wise to conform with this tradition as it will save a great deal of aggravation and inconvenience and possibly an inordinate amount of time spent completing paperwork and the like.
The walk some three to four hundred steps up the steep hill to Sid Bou Said was exhausting and sweaty in the mid morning sun. The blue doors in the village are only superficially identical. They differ in the pattern of the studding with popular motifs such as moon crescents, stars and minarets.
Sidi Bou Said is named after a 13th Century ‘Sufi’ holy man who settled here on his return from his pilgrimage to Mecca. It became a centre of ‘Sufism’ and as such a place of pilgrimage. The tomb of Sidi Bou Said is visited by the Muslim faithful to this day.
The village is still bustling with pilgrims who come not only from Tunisia but from all over the world. They crowd the narrow cobbled streets and barter in the souks for precious goods to take back to their own countries. These faithful are called tourists and they come in their bus loads. We are, of course, tourists and so cannot complain but it is better to see the village after the tourists have gone when it is taken over by the locals. An hour spent over a café turc smoking a ‘chichas’ or Hookah at the famous Café Nattes where the likes of Jean Paul Sartre, Andre Gide, Simone de Beauvoir and other artists of the time used to hang is exceptionally relaxing and atmospheric.
We gazed from the terrace of the Café Sidi Chabanne sipping a Thé au Pignons, mint tea with pine nuts, over the beautiful Bay of Tunis and at Bella sitting peacefully on its mooring in the Marina below.
A visit to a traditional Sid Bou mansion still occupied by a lawyer and his family was fascinating. Those of the fifty five rooms that we saw together with the cool courtyards and gardens gave a real insight into the life of the well off middle class of Tunis many of whom have their mansions in this area. The panoramic views from the terraces were stunning stretching from Tunis itself to Carthage and over the Bay to the hills to the south and Cap Bon to the north around which we shall sail when we leave this delightful place.
Sidi Bou Said is famous for its beautiful ornate white painted birdcages. They resemble the curved window grilles found in the wooden shutters of Arab houses but they look like miniature mausoleums.
Just along the bay from the Marina is the Presidential Place compound. It is well protected as you would imagine even from seaward. We must not deviate far from our course when we leave for fear of capture, if not foundering from hostile fire!
The alarm woke us early with the view of travelling to Tunis in the comparative cool of the day before the sun gets too high but, of course, it was cloudy and rain was falling as we alighted from the TGM train at Tunis Marine Station. The TGM sounds awfully grand for the noisy, bone shaking contraption that we were on but it got us there in less than half an hour at the ridiculous fare of about 80p for 1st class return.
Tunis dates back to the early days of nearby Carthage and there is evidence that it existed from the first Punic War. Destroyed in 146BC, it wasn’t until the 7th Century that the Arabs recognised its strategic importance and developed the city, starting with the Great Mosque in AD732, until it became a major centre of science, culture and religion in North Africa. With trade flourishing between Europe and the East, Tunis became an Arab metropolis and capital.
The city centre divides distinctly into two halves, the modern metropolis built mainly by the French and the historic UNESCO World Heritage Site Medina, little changed since medieval times, full of Mosques, souks and ancient palaces.
The 8th century Great Mosque some of the original of which remains to this day stands at the heart of the city amongst the cobbled narrow streets of the bustling souks. The prayer hall and courtyard of this Mosque, indeed any Mosque, are sacred ground and, as such, entry is forbidden to non Muslims. It doesn’t seem right, does it, when a person of any faith can walk into say Canterbury, Salisbury and York Cathedrals.
The medina has over twenty souks forming one vast animated marketplace surrounding the Great Mosque. The principal souks for upmarket goods such as jewellery, religious books, carpets and perfumes were closest to the Mosque and those that were smelly or dirty, such as tanning leather are furthest away.
Talking of carpets, all ruses are used to try to get you to buy one. An invitation to get a panoramic view over the Mosque will inevitably end up in the invitee’s brother in law’s carpet shop. We have successfully resisted such attempts by saying ‘no, bugger off’ in the nicest possible way through gritted teeth but with a smile on our lips.
The Tour bet el Bey is unique. It is a mausoleum for the Beys, 18th century Husaynid Kings, their wives and dignitaries. Their tombs are crammed into exquisitely tiled chambers with beautiful fretwork plaster ceilings and domes. The men’s tombs are topped with marble fezzes or turbans and the ladies with a headstone at each end.
We witnessed the severest thunderstorm either of us has encountered. The fork and sheet lightning was markedly dazzling and too close for comfort coming, as it did, only a second before the ear splitting thunderclaps. The rain fell in torrents sometimes as massive hailstones. It stayed over or around us for at least eight hours and Miggy reckoned it was reminiscent of those she had lived through during the monsoon in India.
People say that the Roman remains at Carthage are an anticlimax in that what there are of them are scattered widely over a large area amongst the mansions of the rich Tunisians. I must admit that I was here over forty years ago and remember little although that is probably nothing to do with the impact the site had on me but more the loss of memory due to age.
We limited our visit to a few ruins in close proximity to one another, the Antonine Baths, the remains of villas and Hadrian’s Palace, Hadrian’s theatre and the museum, and we found them all fascinating.
Carthage was founded in BC814 by the Phoenicians and by the 4th century BC had become a major force in this part of the Mediterranean. The Romans raised it to the ground during the Punic wars and re-established it as a huge city of great influence. It gradually fell into ruins following its occupation by the Vandals, the Byzantines and finally the Arabs in 695AD.
The best preserved of the Roman ruins are the Antonine Baths. These 2nd century AD baths were once the largest in Africa and they are vast and very impressive particularly when filled with water as they were after yesterday’s storm.
Land and sea trade grew under the stable rule of Caesar Augustus in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and that resulted in the growing prosperity of the inhabitants of the city. The ruins of the villas and Hadrian’s Palace clearly show the layout of the accommodation and the street plan. The original intricate mosaic floors are in good condition to this day.
Hadrian’s theatre, although mostly rebuilt, was evidently a feat of construction in its perfect semicircular form. The magnificent thing is that it is still used for performances of theatre and music.
It is extraordinary that we were alone at the last two sites. The helter skelter schedule of the organised tours no doubt allows no time to see these extremely fascinating remains of a great Roman city.
The museum is a little disorganized but displays some ancient and extremely interesting Punic, Roman, Christian and Arab artefacts taken from the site of Carthage. The museum stands on top of Byrsa Hill where the Roman Forum and Capitol used to dominate and overlook the city. Ruins of the buildings still exist as well as the foundation of Punic houses nearby.
We will remember with affection our time in the Bay of Tunis as we will meeting and taking wine with Yannick and Denise, a French couple from Vannes and with Ken and Maureen, an American couple who have been cruising the world for a long time and who, as well as speaking Italian and French, are, astonishingly, fluent in Chinese.
Some of you may have heard Miggy on BBC Radio Solent on Monday the 8th. Her next broadcast is on the 12th of December sometime between 0630 and 0645.
We have now arrived at our winter base, Monastir. We will publish a blog about the east coast of Tunisia from The Bay of Tunis around Cap Bon and south to our present location in the very near future, that is, when we can find internet access. Our address here at Monastir is:
S/V Bella
Marina Cap Monastir
B.P.60, 5000 Monastir,
Tunisie
Tel: +216 214 353 17