Made it to Sfax!

Really short blog today, as it was pretty much a driving day – from the lovely Hotel Belvedere Fourati to the Radisson in Sfax.  Basically, about a 3 hour 15 minute drive, which took a bit longer, as we didn’t really have good directions on how to get there; the hotel is not on our GPS map, which is several years old.  Thank heavens for the internet and maps, as we knew we were close, but were not sure where to look!  Finally, I Googled the hotel on my phone, and we were able to get driving directions from there – only about another 3-4 minutes!  Yay!  Because truly, Sfax is the second largest city in Tunisia, and again, definitely has the traffic to prove it!

 

So … to begin!  Slept in until almost 7:30 am, and then down to breakfast about 8:30.  The re-packing took a while, but I managed to actually get everything back into the suitcases yet again!  Small victories!  As we didn’t want to arrive in Sfax too early, we decided to wait until about 10:30 to leave – this also had the advantage of avoiding some of the rush hour traffic in Tunis.  Checked out with the lovely gal at reception, who is truly wonderful, efficient and friendly, and loaded up the car – this time, managing to avoid the killer trunk lid!  The “bulls-eye” on my forehead is actually beginning to fade just a little, and is now turning into a lovely bruise; so nice!

 

Up and onto the freeway and again, headed south, past Hammamat, Sousse, and then El-Djem to Sfax!  The interesting thing about Sfax is that the motor route ends about 12 km outside of town, and then you make your way into the city center via much smaller roads.  And of course, our hotel sits right in the city center.  As we didn’t have a good map, it was a bit difficult, but R did a brilliant job navigating us close to where we thought it was/should be.

 

Finally had to pull over and find it on the Map program on our iPhone, and from there, just a few minutes to the Radisson.  Fortunately, it’s got 9 stories, and has RADISSON on the top – that really helped! 

Heading south of Sousse

Lots of olive trees!

Driving into Sfax

Our lovely room at the Radisson

Pulled up in front and unloaded the car and R went inside, while I parked across the street.  We were a bit early but not too bad, and our room – 616 - was ready.  It’s really lovely!  Nice big room with a separate sitting area.  “City” view which isn’t much to look at, but can’t have everything!  R got the computer set up and did some accounting, and I tried to find sports on the television … absolutely no luck at all!  Oh well!

City view from our room 616

Always start with appetizers!

R's shrimp soup -- with outriders!

My Ceasar Salad

Our beef stew (with lots of cumin!)

My raspberry cheesecake -- but those aren't raspberries!

R's fruit plate

Lovely swimming pool on the 9th floor!

 

Random notes from Robert:

 

I don’t recall if Margaret mentioned it in an earlier blog, but the language in Tunisia is fascinating.  The basic is, of course, Arabic but it seems nearly everyone also speaks French.  Since Margaret also speaks French, our way here has been fairly easy.  I was wondering if French would eventually fade away – as it might – but almost all the signage is bilingual (there is even a smattering of English!), so it might take a while.

 

Next: The people we have run into are uniformly friendly.

 

Finally, a word about driving.  Margaret is doing a fantastic job.  The traffic, especially in the towns, is crazier than in Tucson (but much better than in Cairo) but the drivers make it work.  Margaret wisely drives like a local, which is a very good idea but very exciting for the passenger (me).  The car has a manual transmission, so she is very, very happy with it – except, of course, for the killer trunk lid.  

 

Resting now until we go upstairs to the rooftop restaurant at 6 pm for dinner, so more later!

m

xxx

 

Bonjour!  Actually, we went down to the ground floor to find out 1) how to stop the beeping in our room, and 2) how to get heat!  Lovely gal at reception sent someone up to our room to stop the phone from beeping (I could have sworn it was from outside…) and showed R how the heating/AC worked, so all is well!

 

Rather than going upstairs, I saw “boeuf” (beef) on the downstairs bar menu, and I was sold.  We had an acceptable but not great dinner.  R started with shrimp soup – turns out, it was more than “shrimp”; it also had mussels and other “things” from the sea, including a piece of octopus or squid as well as the shrimp!  I had a very overdressed Caesar salad; nice to have some greens, though.  For mains, we both ordered the beef, which turned out to be a very cumin-y stew.  Good, but WAY more food than either of us could eat!  Dessert was better – a fruit plate for R, and raspberry cheesecake for me.  The cheesecake was delicious, but seriously, those were definitely not raspberries – but I enjoyed it nonetheless!  Everything accompanied by an excellent of Tunisian red wine!  They definitely do know how to make wine here, that’s for sure!

 

Back upstairs about 7:30 after a quick stop up to the 9^th floor to see the view, which was lovely!  Breezy night, definitely!  

 

So, until tomorrow!

m

xxx