MOROCCO II - Moulay Idriss, Volubilis and Meknes

Day three saw us catch the train from Fez to Meknes (about one hour), from where we took a cheap 'grand taxi' (aka old Mercedes bomb) along with 5 other passengers to a small mountain village called Moulay Idriss. It is named so after the shrine of Moulay Idriss - Morocco's most venerable saint and the creator of its first Arab dynasty from 782. The rough guide advises that the shrine is the object of constant pilgrimage, although it must have been pilgrim 'off-season' when we were there as the village was pretty quiet. We had a peek through the gate into the shrine/mosque/zaoia (see picture below). This is as far as non-muslims are allowed to go, hence the bar.

While in Moulay Idriss we bumped into what must have been the sole other tourist in town that day - a Lebanese chap called Sam from Germany who turned out to be a good sort with lots of travel stories and advice to tell, plus a fluent speaker of Arabic, French, German and English!!! He was heading for Volubilis like us so accompanied us on the 4km walk there. Volubilis was the provincial Roman capital of Morocco for about 200 years up until 285 AD. The site is amazing in terms of its position in the middle of a white open plain in the middle of practically nowhere. We struggled to comprehend where they had managed to drag all the rocks from to build this city, complete with palaces, basilica, public baths, temples and forum. There were many features that have survived intact. We took a lot of photos at Volubilis....

This is the view looking back towards Moulay Idriss from Volubilis.


Graham in front of the main entrance gate.

There are many amazing mosaics amidst the ruins. The two photos below show parts of one large mosaic entitled the 'Labours of Hercules'. Each of his twelve tasks is pictorially represented.

Another interesting thing about this site were the storks that have built their nests on the columns. This was made even more interesting by the fact that it was obviously mating season....

We also made friends with a donkey who was cleaning up the weeds between the rubble....he turned out to be very photogenic too!

After having a really good look around and then spending a bit of time negotiating a taxi ride, we travelled back to Meknes and had a look around the Medina and square there. Meknes is another one of Morocco's imperial cities, established by Sultan Moulay Ismail. Sounds like he was a bit of a cruel fellow - 'My subjects are like rats in a basket and if I do not keep shaking the basket they will gnaw their way through' - but his power saw a period of building on a grand scale, and Meknes was one of the products.

In the medina Sam spotted a man through a cellar door throwing saw dust into a fire. It turned out he was stoking the fire for the local hammam. This chap was probably quite poor, but he was extremely friendly and very proud of his job and, with Sam translating, explained to us how the hammam heating system worked and how it was his responsibility to keep the temperature constant. At the same time he was cooking his dinner - a tagine - in a large pottery jug in a little fire to the side of the big oven. It smelt pretty good! He let us take photos while he stoked the fire to make lots of sparks fly out.

We then continued on to have a look at the palace buildings and the mausoleum of Moulay Ismail.

Sam and Graham in front of the Bab Monsour gate

Here is one of the (many cheesy) depictions of the Moroccan king, Hassan II.

The courtyard outside the mausoleum of Moulay Ismail.

We left Meknes after dark to head back to Fes on the train.