images of the Hôtel du Lac in Tunis, Tunisia, completed in 1973

@BenHigbie it's such a distinctive hotel. I remember the first time I saw it in person... I knew it was supposed to look a bit like a Star Wars sand crawler but it was surprising how much it looked like one.

This was more than 20 years ago though. Looking at recent Google street view images, it looks like they've given it a good power washing and maybe painted it?

@douglasvb wow you visited Tunisia? Ive always wanted to see that part of the world. So many cool ruins everywhere. I dont know much at all about the history of this hotel. I wonder if George Lucas or maybe an artist who worked for him saw it and it inspired him to design the Jawa's vehicle that way.

@BenHigbie I lived there for a year. It's a lovely country with great people and food and sooooo much history. It's well worth a visit.

I knew some people in the Tunisian film industry back then and they said that Lucas basically borrowed much of Star Wars from Tunisia. And I have to agree. Any desert planet is inspired by Tunisia. The Jedi cloaks are just bernouses (a typical local cloak. I've got one in my closet right now.). The house where Luke Skywalker grew up is a troglodyte dwelling that is now a hotel that I've stayed in. The Jawas are speaking bits and pieces of Arabic and look like kids wearing bernouses running around on their way to school. And so much more.

It sounded like Lucas hung out in Tunisia for a while during location scouting and got inspired, and rewrote the script to include a lot of Tunisia in Star Wars.

Anyway Tunisia and the people are all wonderful. A+ would live there again.