About 2 hours at the wheelPottery Experience in Tunis Village, Fayoum
Tunis Village sits on a ridge above Lake Qarun and is, improbably, Egypt's pottery capital — the result of a school the Swiss potter Evelyne Porret founded here in 1980 and the hundred-odd local potters who trained in it. You spend two hours at a wheel with one of them.
About two hours seated at the wheel. Messy rather than strenuous — wear something you don't mind getting clay on.
Where You’ll Go
What You’ll Do
- 1
Arrive in the village
Up onto the ridge above Lake Qarun, into a village of mud-brick houses, studios and gardens that grew around its craft rather than around a road.
- 2
Walk the studios
Watch working potters throw and paint the bold, unmistakable Fayoum designs, and see what a piece looks like at each stage.
- 3
At the wheel
Two hours with a local potter: centring the clay, opening it, pulling the walls up. Beginners are the normal case here, not the exception.
- 4
Paint and finish
Decorate what you've made, and hand it over to be dried and fired.
- 5
Lunch over the lake
Food and tea at one of the village's eco-lodges, looking out over Lake Qarun.
Included
- ✓Private transport within Fayoum
- ✓The workshop with a working local potter
- ✓Clay, tools and use of the wheel
- ✓Firing of your piece, with collection or shipping arranged
- ✓Studio visits around the village
- ✓Bottled water
Good to Know
The practical truth about this one — timings, conditions, and what we can’t promise.
- Complete beginners are the norm — this is a first-time class, not a masterclass.
- Around two hours at the wheel. Wear something you don't mind getting clay on.
- A thrown piece has to dry and be fired before it can travel, so we arrange collection on your way back through, or shipping.
- The village came out of the pottery school Evelyne Porret founded in 1980; the school is still there.
- It pairs naturally with a Fayoum day tour or an overnight in the village's eco-lodges.
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