About This Museum
The Dar Cherait Museum in Tozeur is a Tunisian museum located just a few hundred meters from the city’s palm grove, at the doorstep of the Sahara. It is the first private museum in Tunisia and was founded in 1990 by Abderrazak Cheraït, the mayor of Tozeur, who initiated several cultural projects to enhance Tunisia’s heritage.
The Dar Cheraït Tozeur was built following the model of a bourgeois palace. Within the palace’s rooms, scenes of Tunisian life in the 19th century are reconstructed: the Bey’s room (of the notables), life in the kitchen, an authentic reconstruction of a hammam, the master of the Quranic school, and some wedding scenes.
The museum also houses a room with a collection of traditional jewelry and pottery, as well as a room with contemporary paintings paying tribute to the poet Abou el Kacem Chebbi.
This museum brings together three independent spaces that have little in common apart from three different approaches to Tunisian civilization. If you only wish to visit a part of the whole, take a stroll through the beautiful Museum of Arts and Traditions. Children will appreciate the Medina of One Thousand and One Nights. A mixture of culture (or so-called) and entertainment.
Dar Cheraït also hosts collections of traditional jewelry and pottery. The glass room is filled with lamps, vases, and other mouth-blown glass pieces. The contemporary paintings gallery may not appeal to everyone.
In the evening, you can attend a sound and light show about the most famous stories of the Orient: One Thousand and One Nights, Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves… (approximately 45 minutes). For some, it’s entertaining; for others, it’s disappointing, and the reviews upon exiting are mixed.
Opening hours and prices
Opening hours: 8:00 AM to midnight
During the month of Ramadan: 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM to midnight
Dar Cherait Museum in Photos
Where to Find Dar Cherait Museum
Discover in Video
Frequently Asked Questions
Dar Cherait is Tunisia's first private museum, opened in 1990 by Abderrazak Cheraït (later mayor of Tozeur). It recreates the interior of a 19th-century Tunisian palace, allowing visitors to experience the room arrangements, furnishings, and domestic environment of a wealthy Tunisian noble family of the period.
The museum guides visitors through recreated spaces including a noble's reception chamber, a traditional kitchen, a hammam (bathhouse), a Quranic school, a bridal chamber with wedding trousseau, and guest quarters, all furnished with period-appropriate objects and mannequins.
Yes. Dar Cherait hosts a famous sound-and-light show called "One Thousand and One Nights" in its garden, combining music, narration, and lighting effects to evoke the world of the Arabian Nights. The show runs nightly and is popular with both Tunisian and international visitors.
Dar Cherait is open from 8am until midnight daily, an unusually long schedule that accommodates both daytime museum visits and evening sound-and-light show attendance.
Dar Cherait is on the main road through Tozeur in southwestern Tunisia. Tozeur is reached by domestic flights from Tunis (about one hour) or by bus/louage (about six hours). It is the gateway to the Chott el Djerid salt lake and the Saharan oasis landscape.
Tozeur is known for its distinctive yellow brick architecture in the medina, the Abou el Kacem Chebbi Garden, the Chott el Djerid salt flat, the mountain oases of Chebika and Tamerza, and as a base for Sahara excursions toward Douz.
