Sousse Date(s): 2012/13. Photos by Aymar. 1 - 78 of 78 Total. 9883 Visits.
1 Sousse, hotel 'Penthouse' level. Also an excellent place for MacGyvering. Just make sure that the piece of electrical wire is truly discarded.
2 Sousse, hotel the plumber's rigging floor
3 Sousse, hotel Best guess, part of a legacy ventilation system. (Time of lore, when hard drives were still rather large and klutzy.)
4 Sousse, hotel 'Royal Beach' spelled backwards in paynim letters. - Puzzle by the way, was the nearby 4 star hotel 'al kzar', so named in homage to the Romanov dynasty (it would not harmonize too well with boulevard Mareshal Tito). It could also be a reference to an ancient type of fortified desert dwelling.
5 Sousse, hotel a slap of concrete + a plumb line = roof born perpendicularity
6 Sousse, hotel close Encounter of the Third Kind, sort of. Semi-animated by dimpled wavelets.
7 Sousse
8 Sousse, hotel Astro Turf (modelled on sods) fresh from the dry cleaner. Only in Chelm.
I had some gastroenteric problems at the time. After suffering through two days of dehydration I consulted a dispensing chemist. Recommended medication: Racecadotril capsules (Big Brother is watching: seulement sur ordonnance) and, as flanking measure, Smecta (as a first approximation, magnesium powder). It did surpass my Pepto-Bismol expectations. I phased out all medication during the second day. No recurrence. Only side effect, a persistent case of heartburn.
Incidentally, daily base rate for a hospital bed (Clinique les Olivers, Sousse-Khezama / Sousse-Hammam): 25 EUR. Before your cancel your insurance, anesthetic gases are rather pricy. Real men, what anaesthetics. Not to create a false impression, they ask for a medical dossier. - Pick up trucks pinch hit as no frill ambulances.
9 Sousse, Daditong Post-mortem of a Daditong (dead starter button). SD slot to the left. No discernible hard drive. By elementary deduction, solid state magic - if flash sticks can do it. Rather sluggish execution. Type it in today, see it on the screen tomorrow. The Android OS (Linux fold) was forgiving enough.
10 Sousse, Daditong
Close up of the under dimensioned Wlan antenna (the small segment of meandering Greek frieze line). En lieu of an unrealized 4th USB port. - Is it Wlan hopping if you try out the foyers of different hotels to boost your reception. Big hotels have up to 5 guest points. All no good if the start button fails.
11 Sousse hotel environs
12 Sousse hotel environs
13 Sousse Where did all the Bath chairs go. Incidentally, the sidewalks are not very rollator friendly. Simply too split leveled.
14 Sousse Feel like a Monsanto giant, live in a well rounded corncob. Backdrop of a previous picture. Hibernating building crane in front. (Actually a Swiss Army Knife after a close encounter with a paint pot.)
15 Sousse, Avenue Leopold Sedar Senghor
16 Sousse, Avenue Leopold Sedar Senghor
Boulevard Léopold Sédar Senghor. City square manifest, probably stenciled. Line up, from left to right: Che defaced - albeit without full conviction, a political activist in homespun fabric, Arafat - it is either a kilt or a keffiyeh, center, a mystery person, completely defaced, Castro and possibly Saddam Hussein (also defaced). Segue, 'Brigade Rouge' with bulldog mascot.
The Gandhi legacy. On the Sunday School level, and the natives were not even allowed to operate sebkhats (salinas). Colonial rule is never very considerate, that is how you define it. Reconsidered: if you base your tax system on woodruff you will be forced to persecute freelance woodruff gathers. You do not like it, put herb Paris in your punch bowl. Along the same line, it could be claimed that Gandhi proposed nothing less than collective counterfeiting. That stretches the civil disobedience concept somewhat. The problem for the rather slothful East India Company (or successor organizations based on the...
17 Sousse, Avenue Leopold Sedar Senghor Political Rorschach test of sorts. Slightly encrypted: el tauro en carne y hueso. Denouement: slaughtering day.
18 Sousse, Catacombs It could be just me but there is no way you can squeeze Tironian notes (anything cursive will qualify) into the same font size as Antiqua Latin. Readability first.
19 Sousse, Catacombs Some skeletons are more picked over than others. A question of intrinsic value.
20 Sousse, Catacombs The corridors in white are off limits.
21 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum) In front of the museum. The supervising personnel sports watch caps. Sensible enough. I still would hesitate to wear one in public. Well, maybe in a snow storm.
22 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum)
Water skiing motive. Some perspective liberties (an upright trident cannot rest on the croup of a horse the way it is shown). The harness looks rather flimsy. Steering may work, the bridle looks adequate, but the 'string bikini' (breast collar) would be unsuitable for the transmission of traction force. Hardly any padding. One possible answer, artistic licence (why expect hard science). The piece of yoke glued to the crest of the starboard steed has no discernible function. A mere afterthought.
Variant answer: water walking sedan carriers (no particular harness) would not have the same artistic impact. - In depth reference: Dr. Judith A. Weller on Lefebvre.
23 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum) Amorous pursuits with pine cone tipped thyrsus. Standard isfahan problem, which side is up and which is down. Terrazzo pure, snowflakes galore, has is advantageous.
24 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum) Maritime Zeus or body double. It is only a Celtic Cernunnos if it sports antlers. - Technical challenge: anti-glare without distortions. Missing third hand. There is only so much duct tape you can use to fix a broken battery lid.
25 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum)
Calendar mural. I do not recall the plaque. Free hand: ca 2nd century A.C. The agricultural year did still start in March (which also explains the off-set for the numerical month - September, October, November, December). Somewhat pedantic, the shifted offset, spring equinox versus midwinter solstice, has nothing to do the with Julian calendar reform (better leap year synchronization).
The fall season is easiest to read. Overriding motive, the vine wreathed Dionysos (or Bacchus). September, two grape stomping putti (nearly Frères de Limbourg correct); October, time out for star gazing - could also be a comet; November, Halloween time. Not sure about the particular animal masks sported by the trick-or-treaters. Some details might be gleaned from Ovid's Fasti. - Winter, a Bruegel correct huntsman (proudly displayed, a trapped jack rabbit and a brace of mallards). The other tableaux are somewhat more challenging. Selectively, February (fever month). A toubib works up an appe...
26 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum) The yearly seasons at the age of exploration, probably Dutch. No actual exhibit.
27 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum) A cornucopia second class, suitable for maritime deployment.
28 Sousse, Musee National (Medina Museum)
When spiffy Jacuzzis were still listed as baptismal fonts. Plaque: Byzantine period, from a razed church near Thapsus [present day El Gaala]. Unearthed in 1993 (a bulldozer is mentioned). If I read correctly between the lines, the Bardo museum in Tunis had first dibs on all finds in the old days. Thwarted for once. - First impression, complete immersion will have been a must. Being a 6ft giant is no excuse. Down you go, head first if need be. - The shown waterfowl (rubber ducks in spe) were a staple of atrium fountains. Full inscription (with some replaced letters - 'Bolumtatis' as in overeating is simply not Cicero correct): Gloria in Excelsis Deo et in Terra Pax Hominibus Bone Voluntatis - Laudamus Te. A good Christian should be able to rattle it off in his sleep, including the Richelieu correct restrictions.
29 Sousse, Medina Tiled stoop, door planks with elaborated studding. Once it was the best neighborhood.
30 Sousse, Medina The only thing missing is a camp bed for a visiting Nabi.
31 Sousse, Medina The commercial harbor. Ships queuing up at sea. Proper chow line distances are observed.
32 Sousse, Medina
Motte and bailey, donjon and curtain walls, medina and acropolis. The government offices have been relocated across the street. Liberated space for cultural exhibits.
33 El Jem First view from the railway station. Brochure: the second largest 'Colosseum' in the Mediterranean basin. (They run out of money, sequestration in tooth and claw, or they would have built the second largest 'circus maximus', hippodrome something, right next door.)
34 El Jem Who needs hubcabs.
35 El Jem just follow the crowd
36 El Jem gas light district
37 El Jem Panning is a permissible alternative to wide angle lens shots.
38 El Jem the post Roman box office
39 El Jem
40 El Jem The Corinthian semi-capitals (acanthus leaved) are pure l'art pour l'art. No carrying function whatsoever. The same cannot be said for the telltale 'pock marks' in the coursed ashlars. (Well kept secret, those Romans experimented with caliper brakes. No brake shoes, cicatrized felloe rim.) All slits are perpendicularly aligned and lie on the shortest available axis through the center of gravity. Elementary Vitruvian deduction, those ashlars did stay horizontally balanced while they were craned to their designated locations. As for conceivable alternatives, nose rings might have also worked, or, less facetiously, cargo nets. Just a question of taste. - Of course we all know how it was actually done. Somebody spliced a few sea lions genes into white rhinos and a beast master from the feld did play the flute. Blue ribbon for the highest tosses.
41 El Jem Selfsame observation. The vault stones (voussoirs) were merely wedged in (the final orientation - yaw, pitch and roll - was already imprinted by the location of the notches). Centering (a reusable special purpose scaffold for arch making) has to be evoked.
42 El Jem Unnotched ashlars at ground floor level. Shortchanged out of a free crane ride. - In case it deserves mentioning, the selfsame notches can be found in church ashlars of all periods, Romanesque nouvelle vague and before. There may have been a dearth of civic minded sponsors in some periods but the technique was never forgotten, all implied Foundation myths to the contrary. The big exceptions would be Inca walls and pyramids.
43 El Jem Manhole cover. Some structural stability was sacrificed for the shake of the ornamental appeal. - Glory lane interpretation, blood runnels second class.
44 El Jem Troglodyte view
45 El Jem waiting for customers
46 El Jem
47 El Jem the huddle
48 El Jem Bougainvillea framed bleacher section.
49 El Jem Felis catus - slightly jealous, some can blend in.
50 El Jem Tightfisted visitors, beware of the big stick.
51 El Jem downtown El Jem
52 El Jem
53 El Jem
54 Sousse-Tunis
The narrow gauge railway system. The ride is somewhat bumpy. - 'Mashrool' as in 'occupied' might be a useful word to know. Experienced magicians can memorize up to five idiomatic expressions at once.
Most sites can be reached easily by chartered bus. Make an appointment with your tour representative and a white TTS coach (Tunisian Travel Service) will pick you up at your hotel. Thomas Cook umbrella. Not that anyone expects the tour guide to speak Latin.
55 Sousse-Tunis
Rare boon, a vade mecum train schedule. Try to lay your hand on one. Minor conundrum, the Sfax-Tunis train arrives at Sousse at 8.30 and departs from there at 8.05. Somewhat puzzling. The short answer, altered trunk line, 50% of all trains simply by-pass Sousse. The Sousse departures times are for the feeder train (Metro line) to Kali Saghira. And some information was never meant to show up on split-flap displays.
56 Tunis
Interior of a 'yellow' cab. Seasonal adjustment: the windows were always fogged. Drive with one hand, towel the glass with the other. The speculative theory was advanced that the air duct system should release air which was actual hot. The visible setting for maximal hot air to the interior was correct.
I did not feel too chipper at the time. Soaking wet and shivering. A sure way to catch a cold. (The return train was half an hour late, add a long wait on a windy platform.)
57 Tunis (Carthage), the checkpoints
I never intended to take a tour cab. Against my grain. More or less the usual conspiracy of circumstances. Never ending drizzle, an obscure iconoclastic law against schematic representation of public transportation networks (you could always disguise it as interlocking prayer beads), unclear written instructions, the word direction (dirección) was used instead of transfer. Full script, after the fact, transfer from the Gare Central in Tunis to Metro no 5 (Place de Barcelone), direction port commercial, just a lousy one station ride, and from there transfer to the TGM (another terminal). Once you have your bearing it is easy. The second hurdle (attenuating circumstances, no last minute notebook preparation due to technical difficulties), the destination Carthage encompasses multiple sites, scattered all over place (including the municipal pool sized war harbor). Minor slight of hand (maybe it was just convenient): the first port of call was the amphitheater, smack in the middle of th...
58 Tunis (Carthage), Amphitheater
59 Tunis (Carthage), Amphitheater Weapons cache (security is tight).
60 Tunis (Carthage), Amphitheater The central service corridor. Once covered. The lions called it the green room. (Some raindrop artifacts.)
62 Tunis (Carthage), Amphitheater Tessellated in front - sort of. The rest was fill in, skip load rates.
63 Tunis, Musee de Carthage the portal
64 Tunis, Musee de Carthage Mid-winter. The ghosts of needful things. Matching ghost voice: 'Ana laa ourride devar'. (Wrong by the way. It should be 'laa choukrane, ana laa ourride sheil' or something similar. As long as it is magic.) In balance, most of the time you are on the receiving end. Say when you are strapped into an airplane seat and somebody tells you persistently to put the back of your seat upright. Somewhat challenging if this is one of those no frill Airbuses which does not sport that feature (rule of thumb: no overhead monitors, no reclining seats, no swag bags of free ballpoint pens).
65 Tunis, Musee de Carthage
66 Tunis, Musee de Carthage rafting through time
67 Tunis, Musee de Carthage a recreated stele (left of Africa)
68 Tunis, Musee de Carthage An actual slice of ancient Carthage.
69 Tunis, Musee de Carthage Shell shocked head of a Phrygian soldier. Where is the rest of my soma.
70 Tunis, Musee de Carthage Athene Nike (Athene al mansoor) or something reasonably close. Chef-d'oeuvre de la période gréco-romaine... The only problem, why is it called the Carthage Museum. By cursory impression, all the pre Zama exhibits (before 202 B.C.) would probably fit into a shoebox.
71 Tunis, Musee de Carthage Selfsame problem. The chest is Venetian, 15th or 16th century. Take away the mandala motive and you could even describe it as rustic.
72 Tunis, Musee de Carthage Some Christian motives - the pigeon, the lambs, the fish - but at least it looks vaguely Punic.
73 Tunis. Musee de Carthage Weathered into Roswell blandness. The umbilical cords were never cut.
74 Tunis. Musee de Carthage
Saint Louis (Louis IX of France), Mona Lisa smile. Cannot resist the temptation to itemize the 'outre mer' achievements: You have no Mediterranean port worthy of that name to start with (Toulon was still Bourguignon territory at the time) and ramp up the installations of Aigue Morte. You loose one army in Egypt (after a minor success in Damietta), a king's ransom is paid for your release, then you do the same thing all over and loose a second army in Tunis. And while you sojourn there you eat something what does not agree too well with you. Peer review, they had to write something on his tombstone. (He died of a soldier's disease was rejected.) The thrown in cathedral, the ghost of a Punic acropolis, is briefly mentioned in 'Off on a Comet' by Jules Verne.
75 Tunis (Carthage), Tophet de Salambo
My sneakers were definitely soaked through at this stage. Where is the next brazier. As for the particular venue: Tophet de Salambo. The official position (based on a showcase text of a stele in the Sousse museum): this was just an ordinary cemetery for children and stillbirths. Not verbatim, just trying to flesh it out: the passing through fire part was propaganda. Diplomatically, the Valley of Hinnom was reportedly shut down in the 7th century B.C.. A Colonial lag of 5 centuries would be rather unusual. Cato the Elder, self righteously, putative prosperity is cause enough.
76 Tunis (Carthage), Tophet de Salambo
77 Tunis (Carthage), Tophet de Salambo
78 Tunis (Carthage), Tophet de Salambo Underground tombstones, just as badly weathered.