Meknes, Volubilis and Fes

  One of the hallways of the Hri Souani.

 Part of the walk between the palace and city walls.

 Olives anyone?

 The souks of the Medina.

 Dates.

The remains of the Roman City Volubilis.

The mosaic floor of a wealthy person's house.

 The shrinking reservoir.

Fully loaded.

 

The restaurant where we ate and were entertained.

Friday, September 15^th.

Wim and I were up and down for the included breakfast by 7:00. When the group was all ready we piled into two taxis for the ride to the centre. Rachid had organized a local guide, Omar, for us and he took us on a walking tour of the medina area of Meknes. Omar was very entertaining and told us the history of the city. The first thing we visited was Hri Souani, the horse stables and grainery for the Sultan's 12 000 horses! The place was immense with very think walls to keep it cool. It had it's own water supply via aqueduct and a separate safer supply underground in case the other supply was cut or poisoned.

From there we walked around the complex with the King's palace wall on our left and the city wall on our right. We walked into a part of the King's complex where there was an 18 hole golf course inside the walls! Eventually we arrived at the Medina. The gate through the wall had to be fifty feet wide. On top of the gate were a number of cranes that I had seen flying around the area.

Our first stop was at a small craft shop where an artisan was making iron vases with silver thread inlays. They also had linen embroidered with crosstich. Then we walked into the market area and came across spices, baked goods, sweet goods, olives, dates and meat. Rachid took us into a very expensive restaurant/hotel with a beautiful old lobby where he sometimes takes other guided groups.

Then we wound up at a really small little shop where we had lunch. The cook was housed in a tiny litte area where he cooked for us. There were two small eating rooms, one for six and one for the rest of us. We had a camel burger cooked with spiced tomatoes in a bread pocket and non sweetened mint tea. It was very good.

After lunch we retraced our steps through the Medina to the road where we met our van and driver, Samir. He drove us out of Meknes and into the countryside. We drove for about an hour to Volubilis. This is the remains of a Roman city. It marked the south western extent of the Roman Empire in North Africa. Unfortunately the city was heavily damaged by an earthquake in the 1700's but it was still very impressive in size and layout. What made it really good was that it had quite a few excellent examples of mosaic tile pictures. We had a local guide there too who took us around for an hour. It was quite warm and sunny and we were all happy to find a small shop at the exit where we could have an frozen ice cream treat.

Then we had a two hour drive to our destination for the night, Fes. En route we drove past the beautiful Meknes valley with its patchwork of fields waiting for the October rains and the growing season for wheat and barley. The colours were pastel and muted. We stopped at a dam where there was a man made lake that they use for hydro electricity. Rachid showed us how low the water levels were from the drought of the last five years. There were roadside stalls here selling fresh pomegranates, almonds, gourds and some woven goods. I bought some almonds and a pomegranate after sampling both.

We drove for another half hour before arriving at the Olympic Hotel in Fes by 5:00, where we checked in and dumped our luggage. Most of us then headed to a local bar. Alcohol is frowned upon in Morocco, but there are bars around, but you have to stay inside and people can still smoke in them. We had a couple of drinks and the waiter brought us small plates of popcorn, tomato and onion salad, hot chickpeas, and deep fried sardines. All at no cost! Then we headed back to get ready for the evening entertainment.

At 7:30 we drove to a restaurant in the Medina. It was an incredibly gorgeous 9th century building complete with mosaics, wood and plaster work. We were the first group in so the waiter had time to give us a tour of the second floor with the overlooking balcony and the roof with the commanding view of the whole Medina.

Then we sat at our table, ordered drinks and waited for the other groups to show up. This restaurant does a fixed menu with included entertainment. The first course was small bowls of beetroot, carrot, babagahnoosh, and olives, followed by the main course of tagine, skewers or meat and couscous. The entertainment is obviously put on for the tourists, but most of it was probably pretty authentic. There was a four piece Berber musical group who played all through dinner. Then there was a six piece percussion group, followed by an old belly dancer who got people up on stage to dance with her, then a magician, who was actually pretty good, but it was all stuff we all have seen many times before, followed by a young belly dancer who also did some flame dancing and eating, and finally a wedding ceremony with members of the audience dressed in period costumes. It was entertaining but too long. We got back to our hotel by 11:00.