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Sidi Bou Said Holiday Accommodation
Sidi Bou Said This place, favoured by writers, artists, poets, sought by tourists that every evening at sunset attracts a numerous crowd of Tunisians on holiday, seems to have been nothing more than an 9th century ribat that overlooked the tranquil Carthage bay from above. Coming back from his pilgrimage, Abou Said al-Baji, originally from Morocco, chose to live here.
He was not the only one to do so. Sidi Dhrif chose to die in Sidi Bou Said as did a number of sufi, disciples of the Moroccan Abou Mediane, founder of Megrebian Sufism. This blessed place has thus preserved its calm and serene atmosphere for at least five centuries, until the day that Tunisian notables decided to build their summer homeshere. The zaouia and the mosque were reconstructed and probably also the famous "cafes des Nattes". It was to this lovely village with paved streets, flowering gardens and nail-studded doors that the Baron Ro-dolphe von Erlanger came at the beginning of the century. He had the merit, not unimportant given the epoch, to have catalogued the entire site (1915) and to have imposed the blue color "Sidi Bou Said". The building that he built in a moderate turn-of-the-century, half Tunisian, half Andalusian style was bought by the Tunisian government as a sign of recognition of the work carried on by the illustrious Baron.
