Morocco- Meknes and Volubilis

Our next stop was Meknes, an hour on the motorway from Fes.  We topped up with supplies at the Marjane supermarket then made our way into town.  It was reasonably easy to make it to the central city car parking, which was located near the main square and only 30 dirhams per night.  There were several vans around during our 2 night stay and the 3 Spanish ones from Fes also joined us.

Meknes is a pleasant city and we enjoyed our two days of sightseeing.  We spent some time in the main square (Place el Hedim) which actually had a tourist information booth (first one of any use so far in Morocco) and a nice museum called the Dar Jamai.  The Dai Jamai museum was located in a 19th century palace and had on display Meknes embroidery, a horse saddle (used in a traditional gunpowder race) and Middle Atlas carpets.  Also of note from the main square is the Bab Mansour gate and the souks, which we found 3 more mats to go in the van (will lay them down when we sell) at 20 dirhams each and delicious sugar donuts at 1.5 dirhams (15 euro cents) each- bargain!  We also picked up strawberries at 4 dirhams a punnet (about 35 euro cents)- I'm going to miss Moroccan prices!

Bab Mansour gate

Dai Jamai Museum

Place El Hedim

We also spent an afternoon walking along the walls of the Royal Palace to the Agdal basin- a stone lined reservoir and also stopped at the Moulay Ismail mausoleum (next to the beautiful Moulay Ismail gate).  Being non muslims we felt privilaged to be able to see the resting place of Moulay Ismail.  We walked through several courtyards and then took our shoes off to enter the mausoleum.

The Agdal Basin

The Moulay Ismail gate

The Moulay Ismail Mausoleum

The Moulay Ismail gate on the left and the Mausoleum on the right

We had not seen vegetables for sale (we had been looking in the wrong place) and the parking attendant pointed us in the direction of the Berber vegetable market which is the cheapest in town.  For about 1.50 euros I had 3kg of fresh vegetables.

The seller from whom we bought vegetables

The vegetable souk

Delicious donuts- Dale's favourite

From Meknes we headed half an hour north to the Roman ruins of Volubilis.  They are the most spectacular and substantial Roman ruins in Morocco.  We spent about 2.5 hours here with guidebook notes in hand looking at mosiacs, columns and gates.  The Romans arrived in 1st century AD and most of the remains date from 2nd and 3rd century AD.  The town continued to be inhabited by 20,000 local people after the Romans left.  Various stones were taken from the site for building work in Meknes.  There is a 'free parking' sign near the entrance and so when a guardian in high vis tapped on the window for his money we pointed to the sign and said no.  Perhaps I would feel guilty about this if I had only arrived in Morocco, but after being in several of these situations with greedy attendants we didn't linger on it.  Who knows what the story is there, but they have a free parking sign so I don't think someone can man the carpark and expect money every time.

That night we stayed at Camping Belle Vue nearby.  A pleasant enough site, but lack of hot water (showers going from freezing to a bearable temperature of cold) meant the price of 90 dirhams seemed a bit steep.  The owner/manager however was extremely friendly.  We had seen a organised convey of 11 Italian motorhomes at Volubilis and they arrived at the site later.  Each of their vans was numbered on the back, and they even parked in order in the Volubilis carpark!

We got on the motorway the next day to drive the two hours to Morocco's capital, Rabat.