Tauzeur is for lovers: The Times discovers one of Tunisia's Saharan treasures. (© Farridji)
Every year around this time The New York Times draws up an extensive list of the best places to go during the year--the world's best travel spots. It's always a fun list--a wonderful way to catch up on some of the world's forgotten spots (who would have thought to look up the Austrian town of Kitzbühel, the Austrian resort town known for its plethora of ski lifts and now, increasingly, for its restaurants?).
As far as the Middle East is concerned, it's a curious if entirely unscientific way to gauge the region's hold on the western imagination. Maybe not so unscientific: is it entirely coincidental that last year the Middle East (broadly interpreted, as always at Middle East Issues, as the region between North Africa and Pakistan) rated just three spots out of 31, a pretty dismal batting average (.097). Not to mention the fact that all three spots were clichés: Damascus, Marrakesh and Istanbul. Fine cities each, but not quite the most original picks in the world, and Marrakesh had been picked the year before. Seriously. Of all the gin joints from Casablanca to Lahore, and Times editors had to fall back on a repeat? The previous year's batting average wasn't that much better: four spots out of 44, but at least Beirut topped the entire list (admittedly, your writer was born and raised there), and Marrakesh aside, the other spots had the benefit of being interesting picks: Qatar's Doha and Egypt's Red Sea. The banner year was 2008. Check it out: seven of the 53 destinations were in the Middle East, and each one of them a daring pick, including spots in Libya, Iran and Algeria--not quite the first places that pop to mind when considering a fun trip for a week. And so here we are with picks for 2011. The Times is picking 41 spots this year, a respectable number that suggests the economy may be on the mend (though nothing like the flush feel of 2008, which proved to be more of a reflection of the previous go-go years). How did the Middle East do this year? Not back at all, considering. Five spots in all, a very respectable 15 percent. And the picks are on the border between interesting and fascinating: Iraqi Kurdistan; Tlemcen, Algeria; Oualidia, Morocco; Port Ghalib, Egypt; Tozeur, Tunisia; and Erzurum, Turkey. Here we go.Read the full article, "The Middle East's Best Travel Spots, 2011."
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Comments
Mr Tristam, please at least be sparing, or even now and again waver in your commitment to Lebocentrism. You’re making the rest of us look lackadaisical about the way in which our countries dwell in the mind of World opinion. Naturally we can’t all produce –as you cleverly do within your work– the between-the-lines sentences that labour for our tribal interests. Fine, not your fault–however beautifying Lebanon’s image at Morocco’s expense is faulty. Example: From the middle of paragraph 2 to that of 3 you’ve written in order to trivialise Marrakesh, launching an eternally-futile effort to sideline this ever rising magnet of tourism and interest. Almost immediately after that atrocity of words, you offer up Beirut/Lebanon as the spot where such “misplaced/overindulged” interest could serve to redeem. Should I take it for granted that, had the New York Times listed 44 Lebanese towns and cities you would be mute? Don’t get me wrong; Beirut is, I can attest, a marvellous city but it is Marrakesh that conquers imaginations. I should also add I have read some of your contributions to journalism Mr Tristam. I think of them as splendid, especially when you leave Morocco alone.