Life in Tunisia - Tunisian Culture

Star Wars

Tunisia puts Star Wars fans in the picture...

Tunisia provides an extra significance for fans of the internationally-acclaimed series of Star Wars films, as the oasis town of Tozeur was used as the location for Mos Espa on Tatooine, the Skywalkers’ home planet.

The original Star Wars trilogy, Episode One: The Phantom Menace, and Episode Two: Attack of the Clones attracted thousands of additional visitors to the Tunisia’s spectacular desert region. The sets famously survived a tropical storm during filming in 1997 and the structures are still intact.

And, by a twist of fate, the Tatooine location is within easy reach one of the principal desert locations featured in another Oscar-winning film, The English Patient. Many leading tour operators offer four-wheel drive safaris from popular beach resorts such as Hammamet or Monastir to the sites.
Most excursions also include a stop-off at the troglodyte village of Matmata, whose mountainous lunar landscape was seen in the very first Star Wars film – Episode IV: A New Hope – as Luke Skywalker’s home, and is a strange and unique experience in it’s own right.  These underground troglodyte homes are circled around a courtyard sunk ten metres (30 ft) into the ground from which a labyrinth of small homes, grain stores, and even a hotel are cut into the rock and interconnected by underground passageways.

And, after your excursions round the film sets, you might take a fancy to staying longer as Tozeur itself makes an ideal base for exploring the shimmering Chott El Jerid salt lakes and the remote mountain oases of southern Tunisia. Another Tunisian highlight is a trip on The Red Lizard train, a restored beylical train that runs between Metlaoui and Redeyef, which offers breathtaking views of the Seldja Gorge.

For the ultimate experience, why not take a hot air balloon trip over this breathtaking landscape?