The Plan
I am seriously torn here.
I really want to go to Sidi Bou Said. My dilemna is as follows... If we do the DCL tour to Sidi Bou Said and Carthage it is 4.5 - 5 hours which is way too long for ou DD's. I have read that we could get a taxi tour very reasonably priced and we could then have the opportunity to time it to suit us but I have also read the "beware of Tunisia!" posts. Now once upon a time I was a fearless kind of girl who walked down dark alleys at night without a care and a taxi in Tunisia would require no second thoughts but once you have kids there is a tiny seed of worry planted!
I am sure that we will be fine, I don't want to go on a 5 hour tour without the kids (especially as i have read that several tours in Tunisia over ran) so I guess it is likely that we will do the taxi tour and either take the kids or not take them!
Regarding the camels at the port... well part of me is a little uneasy about them being there but on the other hand we probably will ride them on the basis that when would we get the chance again! I hope they are well cared for camels though.
DH and I have an early Palo dinner reservation for tonight. I am hoping to change it to a later time if possible when we board though.
The Reality
Well we waited until the cruise was well under way to finalise our plans for Tunisia. By this point we realised how much the kids enjoyed the clubs and decided we would book the DCL 4 and a half hour tour to Carthage and Sidi Bou Said. The children went to their clubs and we headed out on our tour.
We visited Carthage first and it was enjoyable to stroll around the ruins of this ancient city although quite amazing to see how the ruins had been built on top of up until very recently!
We enjoyed the tour and our guide was very informative. He pointed out the Tunisian presidential palace and then as I (and several other people) snapped a picture pointed out that it is illegal to photograph it! He smiled and said he would take us to a part of the ruins where we could photograph the ruins and get the "palace" in the background! It wasn't even an attractive palace!
We managed to get a lovely lady on our tour to take our picture and in the background you can see the Atlas mountains.
We had a little look around the museum, browsed the gift shop, I loved the artwork but wasn't sure I could safely get any home so was very bad and took a photo of the display as a reminder!
Darren plays drums and was interested in the display of local percussion instruments.
After that we reboarded our bus and headed over to Sidi Bou Said famed for it's almost exclusively blue and white architecture. We looked at the museum house, climbed to the top of the house and took in the marvellous views and then strolled some more taking photos and enjoying our trip.
We returned to port (pretty much on time) and I was amused after all the blue and white doors to find this door at the port
Before we got onboard we saw all the camels lined up on the quayside. Having been a little uneasy before I was quite pleased not to have to make a decision as the queues were really long and we needed to get back and collect Olivia from the nursery. We did snap this photo though.
After we collected Olivia Izzy decided she wanted to stay in the clubs for a while longer. Olivia was getting a bit braver with the characters and so she and I checked out Mickey and Minnie in their Tunisian outfits!
Dinner tonight was in Lumieres. It was the rotational menu so I thoroughly enjoyed Mrs Potts French Onion Soup again - just love it! At the end we were joined by Belle and the Beast to dance through the restaurant.
as everyone has such different experiences, look forward to following, and also meeting you and your family. Your daughters are lovely, they always look like they are having so much fun.
as DH and I are both teachers that rules out the earlier cruises unless we do the one that falls in half term and take 3 days unpaid leave for the end of the cruise (I am part time so could get away with that, DH would have to do some serious brownie point earning!!
