Tunisia Pt II: El Jem, Monastir & Tunis

Posted on September 5, 2009 by tokyofox

Another 5am start for my final full day in Tunisia. I was at the louage station by 5.45am waiting for the shared taxi to fill-up. Unfortunately I had to wait 90minutes for it to be full which is not that bad I guess but when yoh haven’t got so much time on your side its not so great. I was still in El Jem by 8am though and visited the amphitheatre there which was really nice and fairly empty when I got there though that didn’t last long as a load of German tour buses soon arrived thereafter.

     

A louage back to Sousse followed by a fairly instant louage down to Monastir followed. I visited the Ribat in Monastir which featured in ‘Monty Python’s Life Of Brian‘ and the (fairly) unique thing about this place is that its right on the beach with the tower offering great views of the beach which I went to after for a quick swim. The sea was so refreshing given the temperature and for me, it was interesting to see Muslims in such a non-religious situation and believe it or not quite a relief to be free of the Star Wars sites which had dominated the trip up until then. Indeed, it would be quite nice to return to the country one day for a ‘normal’ holiday.

     

Once back in Sousse I later took another louage back to the capital city Tunis which I hadn’t spent any time in on my arrival into the country. The reason for the early starts to all of these days is because the louage situation can get quiet later in the afternoons so one doesn’t want to be waiting around for ages for the car to reach capacity.

Having often been the only guest at my hotels in the south I hadn’t really anticipated the budget hotels being full but the first three I tried were. Eventually I ended up at the ironically named Hotel de la Tranquillite which was under three pounds for the night and was a basic prison cell sweatbox. Still, it did its job providing somewhere for me to lie down at the end of the day and that was basically the end of my first trip to the African continent and it was quite an eye-opener for me in terms of not being able to use hardly any English for the first time in my life. My French skills are fairly basic so I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for someone who doesn’t speak any French at all.

I may have ticked most boxes while I was there due to some excessive travelling but there was just that something lacking which was not having much in the way of conversation, sharing experiences and so on with other travellers.

I had a quick look around Tunis but was too late to visit any of the major attractions in the area but what I did see was the Grand Hotel du Lac ad its strange shape which was maybe an inspiration (or inspired by) for the sandcrawlers in Star Wars.

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Tunisia Filming Locations: Star Wars Traveller – Tatooine (a.k.a. Djerba)

Posted on September 1, 2009 by tokyofox

I just missed a louage to the island of Djerba at 5.30am and then had to wait over an hour for the following one to become full. The cost of the taxi included the ferry crossing and culminated at the north of the island from where I then hired a taxi driver to take me round the places I wanted to visit. This island is a very popular destination for tourists who frequent the eastern side of the island and its beautiful beaches so my driver must have thought I was a right oddity for wanting to see three old run-down buildings on the west side in Ajim.

First stop was the marabout of Sidi Jemour which played Anchorhead in a deleted scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and was also used as the outskirts of Mos Eisley. Personally, I wasn’t that bothered about this place but as I was in the vicinity I thought I may as well see it.

 
 

Further down the coast and close to the ferry port was Ben Kenobi’s hermitage; a lone derelict building which appeared on screen for about one second with Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder outside it. The film portrays it as being in the middle of the desert by using a low camera angle but it is fact right next to the sea. This was very geeky but very exciting although there was nothing whatsoever inside for that was no doubt filmed in the studio.

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My final port of call on the Star Wars trail was the Mos Eisley Cantina bar where Luke and Ben were introduced to Han Solo before escaping in the Millennium Falcon; filmed on a nearby sidestreet which I found thanks to the map in Mark Dermul’s ‘Trip to Tatooine’ book. Without such a map it would have been fairly impossible to find the Cantina, the blast-off alley and the stormtrooper checkpoint. They were still difficult enough to find even with the map! Of course its been over 30 years since the movie was filmed so needless to say that the buildings are not in good condition but it was nice to finish my Star Wars journey at such a pivotal place in the whole saga.

 
         
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Tunisia Filming Locations: Star Wars Traveller – Tatooine (a.k.a. The Ksours)

Posted on August 30, 2009 by tokyofox

Leaving the Sidi Driss Hotel in Matmata behind, I caught (by luck) an over-packed 7:30 am bus to Gabes where I checked into a hotel and then went straight out again to the louage station to get down to Tataouine, the name that inspired the name of planet Tatooine in the Star Wars saga. While waiting for the taxi to fill-up with people, Xavier came along and once we’d got to Tatouine we were prepared to go our separate ways.

Before this I asked him if he could just help me out with the arrangements and invitable haggling with a taxi driver for what I wanted to do which somehow eventually led to us both taking a taxi to his hotel, Ksar Ouled Soltane, Ksar Hadeda before dropping me off in Medinine and then taking him back to Tataouine.

I was more than happy with this deal as it was reasonably cheap and meant I would have a travel companion for a bit in a country where its fair to say I hadn’t had too much conversation due to my French not stretching so far!

     

We had been expecting some sign of civilization before we reached our first sightseeing spot but that never happened as one moment, we were driving through the middle of nowhere and then the next we stopped and walked into the beautifully coloured Ksar Ouled Soltane (a Ksar is basically a fortified granary whatever that really means – a place to store grain?) which was great. No-one there (apart from a few artists selling their paintings of which I bought one), no surrounding fence, no entry charge and so we were free to climb all over the building to view the surrounding area which was nice as the Ksar is on the top of a hill.

  

Ksar Hadeda was next and we were there much sooner than I had anticipated. This was similar to the previous one but not quite as aesthetically pleasing as it had fallen into disrepair in places. It was the location of Shmi Skywalker’s home in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for the scene where she told Qui-Gon Jinn that her son Anakin didn’t have a father. This place is now part hotel, part Ksar and part building site and so made it difficult to locate the exact filming shots.

 

The final location was Ksar Medenine where I said a bientot to Xavier and then went to the alley on the back of the Ksar which was also used as the home of Anakin and Shmi Skywalker. The scene where Anakin had to say bye to his mum was filmed here with sand added to the street to make it look more desert-y so inevitably it looks a little different now with no set dressing remaining and it looked like people actually lived there.

         
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Tunisia Filming Locations: Star Wars Traveller – Tatooine (a.k.a. Matmata)

Posted on August 28, 2009 by tokyofox

After the unreliability of the buses on my birthday I thought it safer to move around by louage from then on. These are shared taxi’s looking like vans which go long distances and cost just about the same as the bus and are quicker too. I was fortunate to be the last one to want a louage from Tozeur on the west coast to Gabes on the east coast which meant that we left instantly at 7am. Two more shorter distant louages took me to Matmata where it was my privilege to check into the Hotel Sidi Driss which doubled up as the Lars Homestead in Star Wars or Luke Skywalker’s home to put it more simply.

 
 

You don’t need to be a Star Wars fan to be intrigued by this type of underground “troglodyte” home as is proved by the many many buses which make a stop at this place on their way up and down the country. I was one of only two guests to be staying in the hotel that night as it is kind of dirty with poor service but small matters like that were never going to deter me! Throughout the day I spent many a moment lining up photo shots inbetween all the tourists popping by.

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The town is a very small place with less than a 1000 inhabitants and I walked round the place taking in the Berber museum (basically just a simple underground home similar to the one I was staying at) and the Matmata Hollywood-type sign.

      

I went to the nearby hotel where Xavier (a French guy who I met en-route to Matmata) was staying to have a swim in their pool and I later witnessed a wedding which was very interesting. Lots of clapping and noise as a crowd of people paraded through the streets with the bride kept undercover on a camel as is tradition for these events which can last for up to seven days!

      

I even got a free cous-cous (Tunisia’s national dish) meal later that night at one of the towns two restaurants which was really filling. My night was later ruined however at Xavier’s hotel when I started to suffer absolute chronic toothache while drinking which was just unbearable. A nose-bleed at 3:30 am woke me up the following morning which all added up to it not being the most pleasant of nights but it was all worth it to me.

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Tunisia Filming Locations: Star Wars Traveller – Tatooine (a.k.a. Tozeur)

Posted on August 26, 2009 by tokyofox

It may surprise many that visiting some of the Star Wars filming locations in Tunisia is actually very difficult. There are no Star Wars package tours and very, very few Tunisians have even heard of, let alone seen, the sci-fi saga! With that in mind, getting things started was a bit of a headache but luckily I’d done plenty of research. Having walked the streets of Tozeur in the early hours I’d found nothing that could help me such as a tour operator. In fact the whole town seemed to be closed!

Eventually I returned to the scene of my previous night’s wild(?) birthday celebration extravaganza and enquired at reception about hiring a private 4WD driver as the receptionist spoke a bit of English as my bad French couldn’t help me express what I wanted which was, at times, a problem in a country where very few people spoke any English. I had to pay what was expensive by local standards but reasonable by UK ones and well-worth it to me.

My driver Amar first took me to Sidi Bouhlel (below) which is known (outside of Tunisia) as Star Wars canyon and was used in ‘Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope‘ (1977) as well as in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ (1981) which was an awesome sight.

 

Next, I went down into the canyon (below) where the scenery (Artoo’s hideout and Jawa rock) was so instantly recognisable.

  

A great start to the tour and not a soul in sight as I took my photos.

 

After that, we saw wild camels and in baking 45 degrees celsius we then saw Ong Jemal (neck camel) or Camelhead rock (below) which was in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace‘ (1999) but is maybe more famous for its use in ‘The English Patient’ (1996) which I had seen as my preparation for this trip.

 
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A short ride away from this was the Yardangs (protruding rocks resembling shark fins) which was the duel site between Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul and then in the middle of nowhere was the Mos Espa set from ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace‘. Incredible to think that there is no entrance charge, no fenced-off area, nothing. Truly amazing, and this place was a highlight of my whole trip.

The set itself is made of wooden moisture vaporators and multi-domed buildings and archways made of plaster with nothing inside apart from sleeping touts waiting for the next tourist bus as this place is on the tourist circuit though it’s only billed as ‘The Star Wars’.

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I guess I must have arrived in between buses as unbelievably I was alone again and able to wander at ease locating (this is where it gets geeky!) Watto’s junk shop, Qui Gonn’s alley, Sebulba’s café and Jira’s fruitstall.

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After those three highs, I was then looking forward to seeing the Skywalker’s home exterior which was one of the sites I was really excited about seeing. However, I was dealt a crushing blow when I couldn’t find the tiny igloo and communication problems with the driver made it difficult for me to really guide him to where I wanted. After showing a photo of the place in my book to a local I couldn’t believe their ignorance in just saying it wasn’t in the area but what can you expect when a foreigner tries to tell you that something is in your neck of the woods that you’ve never heard of!

A truly frustrating experience, and I really regret not stopping the driver at the 26 km marker (as directed in ‘Trip to Tatooine’ by Mark Dermul which I was following) and looking for it on foot rather than driving a bit further on to a turning which had a bit of a road to follow but from where we just couldn’t locate it.

Back in Tozeur I was still pretty deflated about the sour end to the trip but managed to cheer myself up temporarily by sampling some camel steak which was available at a restaurant run by two nice chatty guys which was a relief given that yet again I was on my own.

I wandered round through the palmeraie area (a huge oasis) and around the town looking at the achitecture and brickwork which the area is famed for although its also a bit of a building site in many places. I returned to the hotel de l’Oasis at night for a couple of beers with an Italian guy I met earlier that morning which was nice given the lack of speaking so far on the trip.

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Tunisia Pt I: A Memorable Birthday!!

Posted on August 24, 2009 by tokyofox

As soon as I arrived in Tunis I took a taxi straight to the Southern Bus Station and bought a ticket for Tozeur for 23 dinars (about £10) which was just about to leave and would take seven hours. Firstly, the bus was 40 minutes late which wasn’t such a problem, nor was the seat that I got at the back as some others were broken and the poor guy in front of me didn’t even have a backrest on his!

Prior to the trip I had anticipated a challenging survival-type holiday and just as I was thinking that it was going to be plain sailing the bus broke down. What followed was a wait of two hours by the road in 40+ degrees celsius heat in the middle of nowhere until a replacement bus arrived.

Despite the language problems (almost no-one in Tunisia speaks English) I managed to provide some entertainment by setting up a simple tin-can target for a stone throwing contest. Anything to kill time and try and lift spirits although it would appear that buses often do this in Tunisia. The next bus arrived with us five hours from Tozeur but that wasn’t the end of the trouble as the second bus broke down about an hour away from our destination but thankfully the wait for bus #3 was only about 40 minutes.

 

Having left Tunis at 11.40am I finally arrived in southern Tunisia after 9pm and after I’d checked into a hostel I went about looking for a beer which you wouldn’t think would be so difficult but it was as Tunisians don’t really drink beer (water, coffee and smoking through water pipes is what their bars are for) so it’s not sold hardly anywhere. Eventually I got word that it was sold at a nearby hotel.

Balloons, party-poppers, presents, people, music, fun, lots of alcohol – there was none of that!! Instead, I celebrated(?) my 32nd birthday all alone with a Tunisian beer in the lobby which indeed was a memorable day albeit not for such good reasons!

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A New Addition To The Family #2 – Anesta

Posted on August 23, 2009 by tokyofox

I am a proud Uncle again after my sister Ruth gave birth to Anesta. She was born on August 14th so congratulations to both Ruth and Carl on their second child.

A New Addition To The Family A New Addition To The Family A New Addition To The Family A New Addition To The Family

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Italy Filming Locations: Mission Impossible III (2006)

Posted on August 22, 2009 by tokyofox

‘The Phantom Menace‘ (1999) and ‘Attack Of The Clones‘ (2002) aren’t the only movies to have filmed at Caserta Palace as the third installment of the ‘Mission: Impossible‘ movie series also used this place which is 25 kilometres north of Naples. There is a 20 minute Italian segment in this JJ Abrams directed sequel to ‘MI:2‘ (2000) or ‘Mission: Impossible 2′ as many of us preferred to call it! Thankfully this film, released a decade on from the first one, was simply known as ‘Mission: Impossible III‘.

  

There are brief shots of the real Rome first though to help establish the Continue reading →

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Italy Filming Locations: Star Wars Traveller – Naboo (a.k.a. Caserta)

Posted on August 21, 2009 by tokyofox

The very first thing I did on day one in Italy was take an 8am Eurostar train for 28 euros from Rome Termini station to Caserta which is 25 kilometres north of Naples. I had intended to get the 6.27 local train but arrived just a few minutes before and without knowledge of how to get a ticket or which platform to go to I decided to not risk it. Ironically, I still got there earlier than I would have but at three times the price!

 

The reason for this journey was to visit Caserta Palace which is luckily opposite the station and was used as Queen Amidala’s Royal Palace in Naboo in both ‘Star Wars Episode I’ (1999) and ‘Star Wars Episode II’ (2002). 

 

It also filled in for the inside of the Vatican in ‘Mission: Impossible III‘ (2006) and more recently ‘Angels & Demons‘ (2009). 

 

Having done my research before the trip it really was quite a sight to see those stairs and the huge window that appeared in the Star Wars prequels. I had a quick look around the palace and as impressive and beautiful as it was I just wasn’t that interested in any of the exhibits and pictures on display.

 

However, the palace gardens were very nice and just stretched on for ages and ages as I found to my cost when I walked them in the mid-morning sunshine thinking the end fountain was much closer than it was. With the need to move on and visit Pompeii later that day I took the shuttle bus back to the palace.

 

Back at the station I had to endure Italian inefficiency and poor service as the machines weren’t working and so I had to queue up at the one window that was open just to get a ticket the short distance to Napoli.

You can see other Star Wars Traveller entries by clicking on the following:

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Italy Filming Locations: Roman Holiday (1953)

Posted on August 18, 2009 by tokyofox

All four of my nights in Italy were spent in the capital city staying at Fawlty Towers which was not just chosen for the name, but also for it’s price and convenience to the main station Termini. Despite the kicking it gets on the internet, I found it was fairly decent but maybe I’m more used to slumming it than others when on holiday!

I spent two whole days in Rome and it’s hard not to like such a place although the people at times did their best to make it so with their attitude, rudeness and incessant arguing. I started by getting in line for the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums (below) which I guess is a must-see, and of course its unbelievable to see though it’s not really my thing. You can’t not appreciate the work and effort gone into such a thing.

   

The following sights, which I visited over the two days, all featured in the 1953 film ‘Roman Holiday‘:

St Peter’s Basilica (below) from the outside was really impressive and featured in the films opening title sequence. I returned at the end of my second day to go inside and climb the 500+ steps to the top.

         

Ponte Sant Angelo is the bridge (below) where the barge dance scene took place below with the castle towering above.

Spanish Steps (below) were where she sat eating gelato (something I couldn’t do due to a case of sensitive teeth) when Joe Bradley (a.k.a. Gregory Peck) “accidentally” bumped into her.

51 Via Margutta was the address where Joe lived (below) but sadly its under construction and bore no resemblance to that in the film which is probably not so surprising as the film was made over 50 years ago!!

Fontana di Trevi (below) was where Joe tried to steal a kids camera while Ann (a.k.a. Audrey Hepburn) was getting her hair cut nearby. Like Spanish steps this was a tourist magnet but a great place to just sit and watch people which is what I did a lot more of on my second day when I returned to both places.

Bocca della Verita (below) probably provided the films most memorable scene where Joe pulled his hand out of the ‘mouth of truth’ with his hand up his sleeve astonishing Ann. Having seen the huge line for this photo opportunity the previous day it was a relief to be almost first in the queue when I returned on my second day.

Piazza Venezia was the location for the dangerous Vespa riding scene below.

Roman Forum (below) was where they met when she was sleeping on a stone and this was one of my favourite parts of Rome as I really enjoyed looking around the ruins here and in the neighbouring Palatine.

The Collosseum (below) is visited by almost everyone including myself and of course Joe and Ann in ‘Roman Holiday’. Another fascinating place to visit and the symbol of Rome for good reason.

Pantheon (below) was really nice too and looking up at the glass bubble roof must be an amazing sight when it p*sses it down. Very sunny when I was there though. Joe bought Ann champagne at a nearby cafe. I was looking for a cafe to sit at and watch people when I was here but they were all quite expensive and I resisted the temptation to sit outside McDonalds which has a fantastic location right in front of the columns of the Pantheon.

  

Instead I went to the nearby Piazza Navona (below) where just round the corner I had a breakfast beer but for good reason as I saw Duff beer on sale which is a famous beer drunk by Homer in ‘The Simpsons‘. The piazza was fairly quiet when I arrived but when I returned after a 10 minute detour it was packed with tourists.

Piazza Barberini was the square (below) where Ann broke out from her palace….I think!

Overall, I did a lot of walking around Rome over the two days. I could have left Rome fairly content after a busy first day but it was quite nice to to be able to spend my time more leisurely on the other day.

  

Piazza del Popolo (below) finally gave me the chance to wine and dine in a nice location with a cheap pizza and a chance to impersonate James Richardson reviewing the Italian sports papers as he did with regularity at cafes on Gazzetta Football Italia on Channel 4 in the early 1990’s.


Click here to read ‘Italia 2009 Pt I: Pompeii’

Click here to read ‘Italia 2009 Pt III: Star Wars Traveller – Naboo (a.k.a. Caserta)’

Click here to read ‘Italia 2009 Pt IV: Mission Impossible III Filming Locations’

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