Rabat

 The walls of the old city.

Typical old city street.

 A communal eating pot on the street.

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Kasbah des Oudaias region.

 The Portuguese fort protecting the harbour.

 Changing of the guard.

 The Mohammad V Mausoleum.

Modern transport.

Thursday, September 14^th.

After the included breakfast some of the group took two hours to go visit the Hassan II Mosque. I stayed in the room and updated my blog.

Then we loaded up in three vehicles for the short ride to the train station. The ride to Rabat was one hour on a comfortable, two level, air-conditioned train. When we arrived we took all our luggage to a local restaurant and stored it there. We had lunch at that restaurant and then Rachid gave us all highlighted maps of the old part of the city.

We went as a group and walked down the main street to the old city walls of the medina. We followed that and had a couple of peaks and short trips into the narrow streets, but didn't go right in because we didn't want to buy anything and we were told we will see better medinas in Fez and Marrakesh.

As we walked I enjoyed watching the scenes of the local people going about their lives. There were vendors, drivers, pedestrians and groups of people hanging out. When we got the the north east corner of our walk we came to the Kasbah des Oudaias region. This is an old Portuguese section of the city. It is walled in as well and the house and lanes are painted blue and white like some areas of Greece. As we walked through the narrow maze-like streets we picked up a local guide. He showed us how to get to the other side where we had a great view of the Atlantic, the Oued Bou River, the city of Salle on the other side, two beaches and the remnants of a Portuguese fort.

Then we followed our 'guide' back out and gave him an expected tip and continued around the area. As we walked we found more markets to look at and then the river on which were a number of small fishing boats. We continued along the river until we came to the Hassan Tower, which is a large minaret and then the Mohammed V Mausoleum. This is a beautiful white building and is guarded by soldiers in white uniforms on horseback sitting on either side of the entry. When we got there we saw the changing of the soldiers too.

Then we finished our 7 kilometre walk by following the tram road back to the restaurant. Everyone went for a beer across the street but I sat and talked to Rachid, who had been sitting at the restaurant for the past two and half hours guarding our bags. I found out he has three children under the age of five and I told him “No wonder you like to go guiding for two weeks!”

We regrouped and walked back to the train station with our luggage to catch the train to Meknes. This time we had first class tickets, but in fact I thought the other train was better. This one was like the old European ones with six person compartments. The trip was three hours and en route Rachid took our dinner orders and phoned ahead. When we got to Meknes we walked fifteen minutes to drop our luggage at our new hotel and then walked another ten to the restaurant. The hotel tonight is more upscale than last night, but the restaurant was more basic. We made it an early night as we are all tired.