A Journey to Tunis

August Macke, a famous German expressionist painter, travelled with 2 artist colleagues, Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet, to Tunisia in 1914. August Macke got really excited by the lights and colours in Tunisia, as a result of this he did a series of water colour paintings (his  final period, luminist approach) that became famous titled : "Die Tunisreise", more than one hundred years go. What is strange, I have yet to meet someone who knows his name or has seen prints of his masterpieces (several originals are in the Museum (Landesmuseum) in Muenster, Westphalia, Germany, the sister town of Monastir). Pity, the folks here don't know this, could be a good advertising, a couple of his paintings are of Kairouan too, give you some ideas of the "good old days."- I guess a lot changed during the last hundred years, on one of August Macke's painting is a man riding on a donkey, looking quite relaxed, while nowadays everybody appears to be in a hurry, feels stressed, the streets are congested with traffic, too much of it, Taxi drivers complain it's no longer fun to drive, cars constantly overtaking, telephoning while driving is common, so is badly secured load on trucks, quite a few drivers appear to have more luck than brain. On the motorway I viewed 12 empty (winter time) storks' nests on electricity poles, we passed the vineyards of the famous Mornag wine, a pretty green landscape with some mountains. The capital has its famous historic sites, well worth visiting and other old beautiful buildings, often built by the French during their occupation (of course for themselves, not to do the local folks a favour). A lot of marble was used and fantastic tiles on a big scale. While marble and high ceilings are beautiful and great to have in a building when it gets really hot outside, during the cold season, though, it is quite tough to work in such a historic building without heating, you can be proud in summer but have to freeze in winter (at least I would, even in a warm coat). In order to obtain a taxi licence in London you have to know all streets, roads, sites etc. and as part of the training spend 2 years driving all over London (if this hasn't changed with the introduction of the navigation system in UK). In Tunisia it is different, while some drivers know the various destinations (even where road signs are missing, not uncommon in Souse), others don't and could really do with a navigation system. In Europe they make jokes that it is difficult to sell in Arabic countries because Arabs don't like a woman to tell them what to do (usually a female voice). By the way, all pedestrians in Tunis and elsewhere, when asked for help to find a certain place, were polite and trying to be helpful. In Tunis they often couldn't as "this area is so big", "this street is so long", "addresses keep changing." When you get really frustrated, sent from "Pontius to Pilatus", you may be lucky and entcounter at your destination a charming person. And may the sun shines, even though it's winter.