Open to the sky, it is tiled with small gardens here and there spaced around a central fountain. The rooms of the two-story house are arranged along the four sides of the courtyard, with arcades sheltering a few of the important rooms at this level. The courtyard is a center of life in the house. Some houses have just a small, untiled courtyard with no fountain or greenery. Others, like this, have lemon trees and carefully outlined garden plots filled with geraniums and roses.
People often eat in their courtyard in the warm summer evenings.