The Bay of Tunis

Sidi Bou Said

At the end of the day, whilst tidying up my portfolio in the Cabine, I came across this water-colour sketch that I must have painted nearly ten years ago, when we last visited Tunisia.

Bearing in mind my previous rant against the miserable English weather, it has quite cheered me up to find this sunny memory from our past.

I remember that the buildings in the town were faced with white stucco and the doors and shutters were painted blue and white.  The sky, without a single cloud, was the very deepest shade of blue.  All along the narrow twisting  alleyways of the town, shadows punctuated the sunlight and appeared to glow, a rich ochre in the heat of the afternoon.

 

 

Tunisia: The blue and white village of Sidi Bou Said

"Bees are murmuring in the honeysuckle and butterflies flit through a tangle of trumpet vine. Behind me is an enormous palm tree, its trunk as chunky and squat as a pineapple. Ahead, the wide blue sea is flecked with white arrow-heads – the sails of small craft returning to the marina below.

The bay is a huge, flat disc of aquamarine, disturbed only by the mauve shadows cast by the twin peaks of Mount Bou Kornine in the distance. According to legend, the peaks are the petrified heads of two pilgrims returning from Mecca. They turned to stone as they stopped to marvel at the very cliff-top site where I am now – the beautiful medieval village of Sidi Bou Said".   The Independent