Sidi Bou Saïd

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 Tunisia's 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 buses along the main road …