After leaving Dougga we embarked on a long bus ride through central Tunisia, heading for Tozeur. We arrived in the evening and checked into our hotel, then dinner and to bed. We arose early the next morning to explore one of the most interesting locations in North Africa.
Tozeur is built around an oasis, a huge oasis with hundreds of thousands of date palms. Naturally, dates have been an important local product for many centuries. The city has also been a tourist destination for wealthy Europeans for decades and the nearby desert and salt flats have been favored by film-makers.
Our first stop in Tozeur was the Dar Chraiet museum, an architectural wonder filled with exhibits and paintings illustrating the lives of wealthy Berber tribesmen in the past.
Here's a shot taken from the central courtyard looking into one of the exhibit rooms. I believe this one depicted a bride and her attendants preparing for her wedding [but my memory might be failing me].
Apparently rich Berbers were really into guns and swords. There were lots of them on display and their presentation showed that they were as much works of art as they were functional weapons.
And of course there were prosaic, non martial things on exhibit, like these lovely pieces of pottery and a nicely displayed sand crystal.
But I was more impressed with the architectural details. The place was lovely. I could have spent hours poking around taking pictures, but there was more, much more, to be seen.
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