Monday, December 6/2010

We take a walk north along the beach to the Tej Marhaba, the hotel the Scottish couple told us about. It turns out to be an immense complex, including a shopping malland an indoor as well as outdoor pools. It takes a while to find reception, reached by an escalator and a glassed in corridor past pub and restaurants. The receptionists aren't eager to deal with us but consent to get a porter to show us a room. It's nice enough, though not, actually, as nice as our present one, and the sea view is a bit distant - a couple of blocks away rather than at the end of the garden. The porter asks us, in the lift, where we are staying now, and gives us a witheringly pitying look when we tell him. Not really justified, although the paint here is new enough you can smell it.

Its assets we know in advance - many more English speaking guests, quite a few of whom come every year, and better English television - CNN and a film chanel as well as BBC World. But we're not quite left wanting to move here. It's enormous and forms its own little world, much more isolated from the slightly seedy but very much alive surrounding Tunisian city than we'd prefer. Standing in the lobby, large as an upscale airport lounge, looking out over the sunbathers, you could be in any very big hotel anywhere - Prague, Helsinki, Pattaya. Sousse vanishes.

And we establish that there's no free wifi. What? Oh, weefee. No. Not in the rooms or the lobby. But in one of the cafés. At a price.We take a walk north along the beach to the Tej Marhaba, the hotel the Scottish couple told us about. It turns out to be an immense complex, including a shopping malland an indoor as well as outdoor pools. It takes a while to find reception, reached by an escalator and a glassed in corridor past pub and restaurants. The receptionists aren't eager to deal with us but consent to get a porter to show us a room. It's nice enough, though not, actually, as nice as our present one, and the sea view is a bit distant - a couple of blocks away rather than at the end of the garden. The porter asks us, in the lift, where we are staying now, and gives us a witheringly pitying look when we tell him. Not really justified, although the paint here is new enough you can smell it.

Its assets we know in advance - many more English speaking guests, quite a few of whom come every year, and better English television - CNN and a film chanel as well as BBC World. But we're not quite left wanting to move here. It's enormous and forms its own little world, much more isolated from the slightly seedy but very much alive surrounding Tunisian city than we'd prefer. Standing in the lobby, large as an upscale airport lounge, looking out over the sunbathers, you could be in any very big hotel anywhere - Prague, Helsinki, Pattaya. Sousse vanishes.

And we establish that there's no free wifi. What? Oh, weefee. No. Not in the rooms or the lobby. But in one of the cafés. At a price.