Nabeur

As part of my trip down south to Hammamat, I also visited a town called Nabeur. It is interesting that the town is called Nabeur in French/English, when it is really Nabil in Arabic. I don't understand why some location names change so much when they get converted to a different language. 

One of the things that surprised me when I first arrived to Nabeur was the duwwar (round-about) -- instead of having a statue to a famous person (as we often do in Western countries), roundabouts in the Arab World are always a surprise. Sometimes it is Communist Russia style sculptures (as in Jordan), or sometimes, it is just a random cultural object. 

In Nabeur, there is a beautiful -- but honestly, quite strange -- vase of oranges that dominates the round about that leads from the old medina to the nouvelle ville. I took a picture of it because I was so surprised by this homage to oranges. 

However, once I returned, and mentioned that I had been to Nabeur, my Arabic tutor asked me if I had eaten some oranges. Oranges? I thought that was a strange question, but then he explained that Nabuer is famous for its oranges. So there you have it -- it all makes sense now. 

However, the real reason that I decided to visit Nabeur was actually not it's oranges -- but it's pottery. I was intrigued because my guidebook said that the pottery in Nabeur was similar to that of Fes. I *love* Fessi pottery -- well, I can safely report that I did not see Fessi style pottery in Nabeur, unfortunately. It was more like the Salé style, but technicalities, Tunisia does have some lovely tile work. And I got some lovely pictures of the picture that Nabeur sells of itself.