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Published: March 21st 2022
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Star Wars filming locations, a gorgeous gorge and Rock the Casbah
A few years ago we started to digitalize photos from travels we did before we joined TravelBlog. If you've seen any them and like them, we have good news. We have some more of those coming up since Ake has written about a trip he made in Tunisia in 2002. If you don't want to look at slightly sepia-coloured photos, my recommendation is that you stop reading now and try to find something better to do.
I began this trip in Tunis, the capitol of Tunisia. I only stayed there one day because I knew that I would have time to explore Tunis in the end of the trip. This day, other than getting adjusted to the country and learning to find my way around, I mainly spent in the Bardo National Museum.
Bardo National Museum Bardo National Museum is probably the most important museum in Tunisia. The collections include many artefacts from the Roman era such as statues and mosaics.
Staues from the Roman era are often nude. A few years ago I wrote a
blog entry highlighting this fact.
When I walked around in Bardo National Museum I noticed that all statues were more or less damaged. The head could be missing, or one or both arms or maybe just a finger. The damages were different in extent for each statue, with one exception. Every statue was damaged in the crotch. There is no doubt that they have chiselled off the penis from each statue.
Gafsa After I left Tunis I was eager to travel around in the country. The first place I went to was
Gafsa, a large city pretty much in the centre of Tunisia.
In Gafsa there used to be a large and impressive casbah, fortress. It was damaged during WWII and today there are only a few walls left. The walls that are standing are impressive, but still they are only fragments of the casbah’s former glory.
Tamerza Tamerza is an oasis about 100 km west of Gafsa. The water from the oasis is used to irrigate palm trees that supposedly produce some of the best dates in all of Tunisia.
Over thousands of years the same water that today irrigates the date
palms has carved out a canyon in the soft rock. When light shines into the narrowest sections of the canyon it becomes magical.
Midès Midès is another oasis in the mountain region in the west of Tunisia. Just like in Tamerza there is a gorge there, a much deeper one.
This gorge has been used as filming location for the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is not the only movie to have been shot in Tunisia. I'll write more about filming locations later on in this blog entry.
Douz Douz is a city in the south centre of Tunisia. Douz is located right on the edge of the Sahara Desert, and that was the main reason why I went there. I wanted to take a tour in the desert.
In the evening when I arrived in Douz I was invited to a Beduin wedding. To me it sounds odd that I, a total stranger, get invited to such a private thing as a wedding. But they explained to me that Beduin wedding parties go on for several days and, at least to some of
Gafsa
After I left Tunis I was eager to travel around in the country. The first place I went to was Gafsa, a large city pretty much in the centre of Tunisia. the festivities, anyone is welcome to join in.
On the bus to Douz I met a woman from France who was also a solo traveller. We decided to go on a desert tour together. The tour was by dromedary and went from the outskirts of Douz to a camp in the desert. In the camp we met some other travellers from various countries. When in the evening we all sat around the camp fire someone started to sing the song
Frère Jacques. Someone else recognised the song and started to sing along, in there own language. Yet another one started singing, in a third language. After a while we were all singing the same song, but in six or seven different languages.
In the night we slept more or less in the open under several rugs. It was very cold at night, almost down to freezing point, so we were very happy that they provided us with so many rugs.
The desert tour was two half days and one night. When we arrived in Douz I decided to travel on to Matmata.
Matmata Matmata is a small village,
Gafsa casbah
In Gafsa there used to be a large and impressive casbah, fortress. It was damaged during WWII and today there are only a few walls left. only about 2000 people live there. Locals have for hundreds of years lived in so called troglodyte dwellings, basically holes that they have dug out in the ground. These homes look quite odd and for that reason they have been used as shooting locations for at least two Star Wars movies. Star Wars fans will recognise Lars homestead and possibly Mos Isley cantina.
Tataouine In the Star Wars movies Luke Skywalker's home is on the planet
Tatooine. The inspiration to this name comes from
Tatouine, a city down in the south of Tunisia, not far from Matmata. I don't know if any scenes from Star Wars were shot in Tataouine. But it doesn't matter, I still think it is cool to be able to say that I've been there.
Chenini Chenini is a former Berber village, now mostly ruins. When the village was occupied the area was insecure and the village had its own fortress, a so called kalaa.
Ksar Hadada Ksar Hadada is another place which has come to fame from being used as a filming location for a Star Wars movie. In the movie Ksar Hadada
Tamerza
Tamerza is an oasis about 100 km west of Gafsa. The water from the oasis is used to irrigate palm trees that supposedly produce some of the best dates in all of Tunisia. represents Mos Espa, the birthplace of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. It was in the old part of the village, a traditional fortified Berber village, where the filming took place. From what I can understand nobody lives in these buildings today. That makes sense since the Berber village was designed with emphasis on large storage capacity and for being easily protected against attacks from the outside. Comfortable living standard was of little or no concern. Today people need the latter more than the former so they have built new houses outside the old town.
I have now come to the end of this blog entry, the first of three from this trip. Hope you also read the other two.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Part I Tunesia
We'd love to do this trip soon. It is great when people blog about past trips.