10/04/2026
Is Djerba terribly overdeveloped?
I would not know.
🐟We stay on the west coast, in a 5 rooms hotel right on the shore. We have keys on our doors - on beautiful faded embroidered key holders - but nobody bothers locking the rooms nor the main gate.
🌴 In three days here the crowd on the beach has consisted of: a few seagulls, a number of starfish brought up by the tide, 2 horses and their manners and a guy who arrives every day at 4pm, swims for twenty minutes in the crystal clear shallow sea and always comes out with a broad smile and greets us with “cest magnifique!”.
🍊We eat in the village down the road - grilled seabass and cod, Tunisian salad, soup, shrimps stewed with onions and peppers, chips and dips - for about £35 for five.
🐙We peeled ourselves from our little Djerban paradise only to venture inland to Djerbahood and then for a quick visit to the main town Houmt Souk.
Djerbahood is a beautiful art project - street artist from all over the world created murals for a small village in the inland- and deserves its own entry-. When we visited we saw only two other tourists.
🌶️Houmt Souk is pleasant enough, but nothing to shout about, if one is familiar with North African market towns.
The masses from the big hotels must have left in the afternoon, as we did not see a single tourist.
The highlight of our visit was dinner at Essofra, on the way to the fort. Kind service, quirky atmosphere and an unforgettable octopus stew.
This - and long walks and ball games at low tide, plus memorable dawns and sunsets - was our break in Djerba.
