Tunisia
Sidi Bou Saïd
Site Info
Official Information
- Full Name
- Village de Sidi Bou Saïd : Hub d’inspiration Culturelle et Spirituelle en Méditerranée (ID: 6765)
- Country
- Tunisia
- Status
-
Nominated 2026
Site history
History of Sidi Bou Saïd
- 2024: Added to Tentative List
- Added to tentative list
- Criteria
- ii
- iv
- vi
Links
- UNESCO
- whc.unesco.org
All Links
UNESCO.org
- whc.unesco.org — whc.unesco.org
Community Information
- Community Category
- Religious structure: Jewish
- Urban landscape: Arabic and Middle Eastern
- Secular structure: Memorials and Monuments
Travel Information
Recent Connections
News
No news.
Recent Visitors
Visitors of Sidi Bou Saïd
- Ali Zingstra
- Ana
- Argo
- Bill Maurmann
- Boj
- Bram de Bruin
- Christian Wagner
- Christravelblog
- Corinne Vail
- CugelVance
- Erik Jelinek
- Federico P.
- Geert Luiken
- George Gdanski
- henrik_hannfors
- henryjiao18
- Jawnbeary
- Joel on the Road
- jonathanfr
- KentishTownRocks
- Lucio Gorla
- MoPython
- Priyaranjan Mohapatra
- Randi Thomsen
- Roger Ourset
- Roman Raab
- Rudegirl
- Sandmann15
- Sergio Arjona
- Shandos Cleaver
- Solivagant
- Ssong.x
- Svein Elias
- Szabolcs Mosonyi
- Szucs Tamas
- Tarquinio_Superbo
- Thomas Buechler
- Wojciech Fedoruk
- YaroMir
Community Reviews
Show full reviews
The dossier for Sidi Bou Said speaks glowingly of an important Mediterranean hilltop town, with palaces and big houses and important religious shrines and so on. The reality (at least for our visit) was a typical Mediterranean tourist village, featuring a packed main street with souvenir stalls, Nutella crepe vendors and so on.
We spent an hour or so here and honestly didn’t find much of interest. It was cold and raining steadily during our visit, so it wasn’t the sparkling jewel we had semi-expected. The highlight for us was Dar El Annabi, a restored old mansion built in the traditional style. It was interesting to wander around, a felt like a very fancy version of Dars we had stayed in elsewhere in Tunisia.
Ultimately this is a thumbs down from me. I really don’t see any OUV, and with all the blue and white painted buildings, the vibe is a smaller and less impressive version of Mykonos or Oia on Santorini (the latter is mentioned as a similar example in the dossier). Forcing inscription here feels like adding Mykonos or Santorini, simply because they are Mykonos or Santorini.
Alongside the recent inscription of Djerba, it’s hard not to conclude that “let’s get WH status for our key tourist attractions” is the current strategy.
Getting there
It’s extremely easy to access, being one stop further along the train line from Carthage Hannibal station, where most visits to the Carthage site will start. There are …
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