Ksour and Berber villages

Right in the heart of a dry, mountainous landscape studded with plateaus and craggy peaks, the stunning architecture of Ksour rise up before you. Hidden away in the middle of nowhere, looking like huge rock-coloured beehives, these “desert castles” (“ksour” is the plural of “ksar”) were once meeting points for the region’s semi-nomadic people who stored their harvests there, safe from looters, in overlapping store rooms called “ghorfas”. Some Ksour, like the ones at Chenini and Douiret, are villages nestled on top of impregnable summits. The ruins of their “ghorfas” blend in to the tops of the mountains, and the homes are partly hollowed out of the rock walls. The Berber language is still in use today. Further north, the landscape mellows as it approaches Gabès, the large seaside oasis.