Sidi Bou Said

Sidi Bou Said sits on a headland above the Gulf of Tunis, a cliff-top village whose whitewashed walls and blue doors, shutters and window grilles have become one of the most reproduced images of North Africa. The colour scheme is not a tourist invention: the village grew up in the traditional manner of the Tunis coast, and a decree of 1915, pressed for by the banker and musicologist Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger, placed its appearance under protection — one of the earliest heritage regulations of its kind anywhere. Since then the rule has held: the lanes climbing the hill still show unbroken white surfaces, studded doors painted in deep blue, and black-and-blue ironwork bowing out from the windows.

The place began as a religious retreat. In the early thirteenth century the Sufi teacher Abu Said al-Baji settled on what was then called Jabal el-Menar, the lighthouse hill, and taught there until his death in 1231; his sanctuary gave the village its name. Centuries later wealthy families from Tunis built summer residences on the slope, and in the early twentieth century painters arrived — Paul Klee, August Macke and Louis Moilliet travelled through Tunisia together in April 1914 — Klee glimpsed Sidi Bou Said from the deck of his ship on arrival — and the light of this coast entered their work. Writers followed, among them André Gide and Michel Foucault.

The village's finest interior is Ennejma Ezzahra, the palace d'Erlanger built for himself between 1912 and 1922 with craftsmen from Tunisia and Morocco. Its carved plaster, painted ceilings and marble courtyards are a twentieth-century meditation on Islamic architecture, and since 1991 the house has served as the Centre for Arab and Mediterranean Music, with a collection of historical instruments and concerts in its rooms. Elsewhere the pleasure is in the details: the stepped main street, the terrace of the Café des Nattes where mint tea is served with pine nuts, and the views from the cliff over the Gulf of Tunis.

Getting there

Sidi Bou Said lies about 20 km northeast of central Tunis and roughly 1.3 km from Carthage, whose Punic and Roman ruins make a natural companion visit. Tunis–Carthage International Airport (TUN) is about 10 km away. The TGM suburban railway from Tunis to La Marsa stops at Sidi Bou Said; the ride from the city takes about forty minutes, and the village is a short uphill walk from the station.