Ennejma Ezzahra — "the bright star" in Arabic — is the cliff-top villa built between 1912 and 1922 for the aristocrat and ethnomusicologist Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger, perched at the southern end of Sidi Bou Said with sweeping views over the Bay of Tunis. The architecture is a deliberate fusion of Tunisian, Andalusian, and Italian elements — Moorish arches, Italian frescoes, blue-and-white tiling — designed by d'Erlanger himself as a setting for his art and music collections.
The villa is now the Centre des Musiques Arabes et Méditerranéennes and serves both as a museum (rooms preserved as d'Erlanger left them, with his collection of instruments, paintings, and books) and as a concert venue and recording studio. The acoustics of the main salon are remarkable. Even if you don't make it for a concert, the visit is worthwhile for the gardens, the views, and the eccentric domestic decoration.