Matmata

In the hills above Gabès, Berber families built houses by digging a deep circular pit into the soft rock and then carving rooms horizontally off its sides, leaving a sunken courtyard open to the sky. The design works: the thermal mass keeps interiors cool through summer heat and warm on cold desert nights. Some homes are still lived in, and families receive visitors for a small payment, showing rooms and grain stores. One of the pit dwellings became internationally recognisable when it was used as the Lars homestead interior in Star Wars, and it now operates as the Hotel Sidi Driss, where you can eat and stay in the courtyard used in the film. The surrounding hills are bare, ochre and lunar.

What to look for

• A working pit house - a sunken courtyard with rooms carved into the sides, shown by the family.
• Hotel Sidi Driss - the Star Wars interior, still in use as a hotel and restaurant.
• The hill viewpoints - the pitted landscape seen from above, with dwellings invisible until close.
• Local weaving and grain stores - traditional storage niches and textiles inside the homes.

When to go

October to April; summer temperatures here are extreme. Mornings avoid both the heat and the tour buses that arrive from the coastal resorts in the middle of the day.

Practical notes

Matmata is firmly on the coach circuit and the experience can feel transactional, with visits to homes structured around a payment and a shop. The film site is a modest hotel courtyard rather than a set, and expectations often exceed it. Some inhabited houses have moved to new-town housing nearby, so what is shown is partly preserved rather than fully lived in.

Nearby

The ksour granaries around Tataouine lie south; Douz and the Sahara are west.

Key facts