What keeps me coming back, and experience the very same fascination, are the villages where houses and mountains merge together. Libya's Nafusa Mountains are a continuation of the same architectural culture found in Tunisia. Sadly, the nearest you get is to stand on the westernmost perch, watch through the permanent haze, and tell yourself that over there, there is Tunisia. The Nafusa Mountains are not high, but dramatic. A few, rare places the mountains have the shape to catch enough rainfall to allow some brave agriculture. Between these villages, roads climb up and down the hills and cliffs. In short, prepare yourself of a great trip.
Ghurfas Kabaw and Nalut are both fabulous ghurfas, a type of structure where single standing chambers are built next to each other, then on top of each other. Purpose of this was to store grains and other vital things for the local villagers and for semi-nomads belonging to the village. Miraculously, these structures provide ideal storage even through summer. Temperatures are kept low and insects stay out. Qasr al-Haj is also a great ghurfa, round in shape.
Troglodytes
Gharyan represents another architecture, this too, related to Tunisia. Houses are simply built below ground, known as troglodytes. This too, ideal for the climate, the ground never gets really cold in winter, and never really hot in summer. Ruhaybat (for which we have no articles) is also supposed to have troglodytes.
Hilltop villages
The third type of architecture are the hilltop villages of Tarmeisa, Yefren and Derj. Seen from a distance, the village will just look as the peak of the mountain. Which, of course, was the intention of the locals; to hide away from every danger there could be out there. Hilltop villages are the least unique, these are found from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to the oases in the Western Desert in Egypt.
