The tourist information office is, conveniently, at the end of our block, not that the information itself is up to much. And it should be pretty well from source, as the building itself appears to be the Ministry of Tourism. Train times are posted on a bulletin board just a little too high to be readable, but we're not going anywhere today anyway. We do aquire a brightly coloured but not especially useful map of Sousse centre, showing our hotel as well as the post office, train stations and souq. Could be worse, but seems mainly designed to feature telephone numbers for sponsoring hotels and restaurants. Across the street from the tourist info is Claridge's Hotel, which had always interested me, despite a certain scruffiness, mainly because of its upmarket name. That is until I read online that the rooms have open showers but toilets are off the corridors. Not on next year's short list.
There's a nice park between the roundabout and the souq. Lots of benches, some in the sun and some in the shade of tall palm trees. A bit of an oasis, close to fast food vendors, shops and taxis - who park opportunistically across the ends of crosswaks which serve to funnel pedestrians into their ambit. Crossing the street here is a bit like doing so in Beirut. The crosswalks don't seem to be particularly protective but drivers are quite aware and don't regard pedestrians as targets. We sit on a part sun part shade bench for a spot of people watching. There's quite a variety, more local than tourist, though with plenty of both. Young local women seem almost equally likely to be wearing or not wearing the hijab. Obviously there's no pressure either way and groups may include both. Noticeably the locals of both sexes wear more clothes than the Europeans, presumably a combination of modesty and sensitivity to cold. What do they make of shorts or bare shoulders? Do they seem scandalous or just silly? We're much more conservatively dressed than that, but this is not a country in which we'd ever be mistaken for residents, everything from hair and skin colour to clothing proclaiming our otherness.
JAWORSKI TRAVELS