After a too short stay in Moulay Idriss we headed back to Meknes but we didn’t go directly; that’s exactly what they would have expected us to do. Instead we dropped in on the Roman city of Volubilis.
Volubilis was once the Westernmost city in the Roman Empire but sometime in the fourth century with the western empire in fast rewind the city was abandoned. The local Berbers may or may not have had something to do with this abandonment. According to our guide the Berbers then razed the city to ensure that the Romans didn’t return. Another option is that the subsequent power in the area decided Fes would make a better location for a city. Since Fes is still there over a thousand years later who am I to argue.
Of course when they say “ruined city” what they actually mean is ruined foundations. The bit of the city that protruded above the ground suffered from, well it suffered from a number of things actually; earthquakes, abandonment and the fact that having a source of immediately available dressed stone proved irresistible for the builders of other cities in the vicinity. This is either a staggering act of cultural vandalism or a laudable form of recycling depending on your point of view.
There were however floors in abundance some of which had some very beautiful mosaics. A few structures have been partially rebuilt with the original materials as far they were available/identifiable to give an appropriate “ruined city” appearance as opposed to just a field of overgrown rubble.
On our way back to the exit we came across a turtle (or tortoise) rustling through the grass. Over the course of the next ten minutes we traumatised the crap out of that poor reptile trying to take photos of it while it huddled inside its shell and waited for the storm to pass. I got a couple of good pictures of what appears to be a tortoiseshell stone weeping with fear myself.
Once we were done with the tortoise torturing we left the poor beast to whatever peace it could find and piled into taxis bound for Meknes.
Meknes has a royal palace you can look at when it isn’t closed which it was and the mausoleum of Moulay Ismael, one of Morocco’s greatest rulers. As is usual you can determine a ruler’s greatness by the accompanying body count and Moulay Ismael had a tally that looks impressive even by today’s standards. To be fair when you have eighty three brothers and half brothers with a claim to the throne then a certain level of homicidal mania is probably a vital survival trait. It was Moulay Ismael who kicked the British out of Tangier (what were they doing there?) and his campaigns conquered much of what is now Morocco.
The mausoleum was large and beautifully decorated with gorgeous mosaic tiling, plush rugs and fountains. It was also cool which is a major draw card pretty much anywhere in Morocco.
After gawping at the mausoleum we wandered through the market where someone adorned me with a possibly dead snake for photo purposes and a storekeeper sold me a Moroccan football shirt while commenting that I was too fat for a medium size. He was obviously pretty confident that he wouldn’t be getting any repeat business out of me.
With reptile photography and personal insults taken care of we repaired to a cafe apparently owned by a couple of cats. There was a small boy whose job appeared to be to fail to chase the cats out of the dining room. At this cafe those of us who weren’t doing the southern part of the tour and thus wouldn’t get the opportunity to ride a camel could make up for this by eating one instead. For the record the camel burger was perfectly nice. It tasted like pretty much any other meat that is ground into a patty and served in a bun.
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