BARDO/CARTHAGE – SIDI BOU SAID

Historical sites of Carthage…

According to legend, Dido (also called Elyssa) was the founder and first queen of Carthage. Dido was a Phoenician princess, daughter of Belos and sister of the King of Tyre. She leaves Tire to avoid a civil war with her brother Pygmalion who had murdered her husband. After a stopover in Cyprus, she landed in Tunisia, around 814 BC. Thanks to an ingenious agreement with the local lord, she obtained land to settle: « as much
than it could fit in the skin of an ox ». She then had a cowhide cut into extremely thin strips which, placed end to end, delimited the location of what would become Carthage.

The hill of Byrsa is probably the location of primitive Carthage, but the place was deserted for nearly a century following the fall of Carthage at the end of the 3rd Punic War. The site will be totally transformed and rebuilt by the Romans at the end of the 3rd century BC. From the Punic period there are also the ports: merchant and military. Nearby is the tophet of Carthage, also called the tophet of salammbé. This place is a « hybrid of sanctuary and necropolis » which includes a large number of children’s graves which, according to interpretations, would have been sacrificed or buried.

..in the village of artists and writers of Sidi Bou Said

The zaouia of Sidi Bou Said was built on the hill of Djebel Menara which dominates Cape Carthage. The burial of this saint and learned scholar, who died in 1231, is undoubtedly the first element of the village which will take his name. The many artists, musicians and writers who, from the 19th century will frequent the place, have largely contributed to a high place of Tunisian resort and a pele of Tunisian tourism

The combination of Arab and Andalusian influences in the architecture of the houses of Sidi Bou Said, with its dazzling whiteness and blue doors, gives the village its particular character. The charm of these residences, nestled haphazardly in the winding streets, have earned the site its nickname of « little white and blue paradise ».