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 mosaic floor of a wealthy person's house.
The shrinking reservoir.
Fully loaded.
The restaurant where we ate and were entertained.
Friday,
September 15th.
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.
did you get a date at the souk?
ReplyDeletemmm...love them camel burgers!
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