Sidi Bou Said Off The Beaten Path

There are many passageways, small courtyards and staircases build inside the house. All what can be seen is deliberatelly arranged and beautifully decorated. Dar El Annabi is huge house of an Tunisian up-middle class family.

The first summer room for relaxing is situated just at the entrance. It is well protected against the sun providing refreshing "cold" air. The room is beautifully decorated and exclusivly assigned to the male inhabitants of the house.

The room with Moresque architecture serving especially for entertaining and receiving guests. Nowadys it is animated by waxworks exibited like life itself in the traditional costumes for important occasions.

This is the front part of the Andalusian garden with big jar which stands in its central position. That big jars used many years ago to provide cereals and olive oil. The jar is richly decorated by very skilful local craftsmen.

This is a part of the house I liked the most, so-called Andalusian garden, with exotic plants grow around and a huge birdcage. There is also an impluvium which is an underground water cistern collecting the rainwater coming from the numerois terraces.
The glass roof cover the space used during the evenings and another summer bedroom where a scene of the Bride's Henna ceremony is represented.

I am not sure about, but it seems this is the mistress of the house. My french is very poor and I didn't understand what she was telling me, however, she willingly posed me in front of the kitchen dressed in the traditional local cloth.

Dar El Annabi is traditional Tunisian house open for the public visitors, in order to see the intimacy of a typical Tunisian high class home.
The house has been constructed at the end of the 18th century and decorated and rebuilt during the 20th century as a summer residence by Taleb El Annabi, son of the Mufti Mohamed, a man of religion and law.