Marrakech
Marrakesh is not a place of great monuments. Its beauty and attraction lie in the general
atmosphere and spectacular location – with the magnificent peaks of the Atlas rising right up
behind the city, hazy in the heat of summer and shimmering white with the winter snow.
Djemaa el Fna.
Koutoubia
Ben Youssef
Tumbas Sadies
Palacio El Badi
La Mellah
El Palacio Bahia
Museo Dar Si Said
“La Mezquita de La Koutoubia” (o de los libreros)
Debe su nombre al zoco de los libreros que instalaban sus puestos junto a sus puertas. Aunque
por este nombre es más conocido su minarete, particularmente impactante para los españoles
por su semejanza con nuestra Giralda, para la que sirvió de modelo y, de la misma manera que
esta torre es el emblema de Sevilla, la Koutoubia representa a Marrakech en el mundo entero.
“La Mezquita Ben Youssef”
De origen almorávide, fue reformada en el siglo XVI y en el siglo XIX.
LA MEDERSA BEN YOUSSEF
Fundada en el siglo XIV por Abu el Hassan, fue totalmente reconstruida en el XVI por el saadí
Mulay Abdallah que la convirtió en la medersa más importante del Maghreb. Constituye uno de
los monumentos más notables de la ciudad.
One of the largest buildings in the Medina, and preceded by a rare open space, the recently
restored Ben Youssef Mosque is quite easy to locate. Its medersa (daily 9am–6pm; 10dh) – the
old student annexe, and their home until they had learnt the Koran by rote – stands off a side
street just to the east, distinguishable by a series of small, grilled windows. The entrance porch
is a short way down the side street, covering the whole lane at this point.
Like most of the Fes medersas, the Ben Youssef was a Merenid foundation, established by
Sultan Abou El Hassan in the fourteenth century. It was, however, almost completely rebuilt
under the Saadians, and it is this dynasty's intricate, Andalucian-influenced art that has left its
mark. As with the slightly later Saadian Tombs, no surface is left undecorated, and the overall
quality of its craftsmanship, whether in carved wood, stuccowork or zellij, is startling. That this
was possible in sixteenth-century Marrakesh, after a period in which the city was reduced to
near ruin and the country to tribal anarchy, is remarkable. Revealingly, parts have exact
parallels in the Alhambra Palace in Granada, and it seems likely that Muslim Spanish architects
were employed in its construction.
Inside the medersa, you reach the main court by means of a long outer corridor and a small
entry vestibule. To the side of this are stairs to student cells, arranged round smaller internal
courtyards on the upper floors, an ablutions hall and latrine, still in evil-smelling use. Until very
recently, a remarkable tenth-century Ommayad marble basin – decorated with eagles and
griffins – completed the ensemble, though it has now been removed to the Dar Si Said
museum.
The central courtyard, weathered almost flat on its most exposed side, is unusually large. Along
two sides run wide, sturdy, columned arcades, which were probably used to supplement the
space for teaching in the neighbouring mosque. Above them are some of the windows of the
dormitory quarters, from which you can get an interesting perspective – and attempt to fathom
how over eight hundred students were once housed in the building.
At its far end, the court opens onto a prayer hall, where the decoration, mellowed on the
outside with the city's familiar pink tone, is at its best preserved and most elaborate. Notable
here, as in the court's cedar carving, is a predominance of pine cone and palm motifs; around
the mihrab (the horseshoe-arched prayer niche) they've been applied so as to give the frieze a
highly three-dimensional appearance. This is rare in Moorish stuccowork, though the
inscriptions themselves, picked out in the curling, vegetative arabesques, are from familiar
Koranic texts. The most common, as in all Moroccan stucco and zellij decoration, is the
ceremonial bismillah invocation: "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful … ".
LA PLAZA DE JEMAA EL FNA,
There's nowhere in Morocco like the Djemaa El Fna – no place that so effortlessly involves
you and keeps you coming back. By day it's basically a market, with a few snake charmers,
storytellers and an occasional troupe of acrobats. In the evening it becomes a whole carnival of
musicians, clowns and street entertainers. When you arrive in Marrakesh, and after you've
found a room, come out here and you'll soon be immersed in the ritual: wandering round,
squatting amid the circles of onlookers, giving a dirham or two as your contribution. If you want
a respite, you can move over to the rooftop terraces of the Café de France or the Restaurant
Argana to gaze over the square and admire the frame of the Koutoubia.
Nothing of this, though, matters very much, and should certainly not deter you from visiting.
There is a fascination in the remedies of the herb doctors, with their bizarre concoctions spread
out before them. There are performers, too, whose appeal is universal. The square's acrobats,
itinerants from Tazeroualt, have for years supplied the European circuses – though they are
perhaps never so spectacular as here, thrust forward into multiple somersaults and contortions
in the late afternoon heat. There are child boxers and sad-looking trained monkeys, clowns and
Chleuh boy dancers – their routines, to the climactic jarring of cymbals, totally sexual (and
traditionally an invitation to clients).
And finally, the Djemaa's enduring sound – the dozens of musicians playing all kinds of
instruments. Late at night, when only a few people are left in the square, you encounter
individual players, plucking away at their ginbris, the skin-covered two- or three-string guitars.
Earlier in the evening, there are full groups: the Aissaoua, playing oboe-like ghaitahs next to
the snake charmers; the Andalous-style groups, with their ouds and violins; and the black
Gnaoua, trance-healers who beat out hour-long hypnotic rhythms with iron clanging hammers
and pound tall drums with long curved sticks.
Declarada «Patrimonio Oral de la Humanidad» por la Unesco
Cantada en todos los idiomas constituye un exponente vivo de lo que fueron las plazas en el
Medioevo, lugar de encuentro para todo el mundo. Por la mañana, vendedores de zumo de
naranjas natural, de frutas, cestos de mimbre, recuerdos, dulces, bisutería, dentistas,
curanderos, escritores por encargo. A veces también desde la mañana y hasta la noche: los
Gnaoua, tocadores de crótalos, acróbatas, encantadores de serpientes o de escorpiones,
bailarines, contadores de cuentos. Este universo se vuelve particularmente fascinante con la
caída de la tarde, cuando la plaza se ilumina con mil y una luces y se deambula de espectáculo
en espectáculo.
LOS ZOCOS
Destaca el zoco Semmarin, cerca de la plaza Jemaa el Fna y como por ella, hay que deambular,
disfrutando del colorido, de la diversidad de aromas, para admirar, entre otros muchos objetos,
las telas; disfrute regateando No tema perderse, siempre habrá alguien que le lleve de vuelta a
la plaza de Jemaa el Fna.
LAS TUMBAS DE LOS SAADÍES
Consta de dos mausoleos, el más suntuoso de los cuales cobija -en una sala con una cúpula de
madera de cedro dorado sostenida por doce columnas de mármol de Carrara- los restos de
Mulay Ahmed el Mansour (s XVI). La leyenda dice que el mármol se obtenía intercambiándolo
por su peso en azúcar.
Sealed up by Moulay Ismail after he had destroyed the adjoining Badi Palace, the Saadian
Tombs (daily 9am–5pm; 10dh) lay half-ruined and half-forgotten at the beginning of the last
century. In 1917, however, they were rediscovered on a French aerial map and a passageway
was built to give access from the side of the kasbah mosque. Restored, they are today the city's
main "sight" – over-lavish, maybe, in their exhaustive decoration, but dazzling nonetheless.
Now there is no longer a compulsory guided tour, you are left to look round on your own or
even just to sit and gaze; best time to go is late afternoon when the crowds and heat have
largely gone. A quiet, high-walled enclosure, shaded with shrubs and palms and dotted with
bright zellij-covered tombs, it seems as much a pleasure garden as a cemetery.
Some form of burial ground behind the royal palace probably predated the Saadian period,
though the earliest of the tombs here dates from 1557, and all the principal structures were
built by Sultan Ahmed El Mansour. This makes them virtual contemporaries of the Ben Youssef
Medersa – with which there are obvious parallels – and allows a revealing insight into just how
rich and extravagant the El Badi must once have been. Their escape from Moulay Ismail's
systematic plundering was probably due to superstition – Ismail had to content himself with
blocking all but an obscure entrance from the kasbah mosque. Despite this, a few prominent
Marrakchis continued to be buried in the mausoleums; the last, in 1792, was the "mad sultan",
Moulay Yazid, whose 22-month reign was one of the most violent and sadistic in the nation's
history. Named as the successor to Sidi Mohammed, Moulay Yazid threw himself into a series of
revolts against his father, waged an inconclusive war with Spain, and brutally suppressed a
rebellion which was supporting his brother in Marrakesh. A massacre followed his capture of the
city, though he had little time to celebrate his victory – a bullet in the head during a rebel
counterattack killed him soon after.
EL PALACIO BADI
Conocido también como “el incomparable”, fue construido por Ahmed el Mansour en mármol,
celias, onix, estucos labrados y madera esculpida. Hoy sólo queda la estructura, que es donde
se celebra el Festival Folklórico de Marrakech.
To reach the ruins of the El Badi Palace (daily 9am–5pm; 10dh) – which seems originally to
have sprawled across the whole area east of the kasbah mosque – you have to follow the
ramparts up at Bab Agnaou, taking the road just inside them, until you come to a reasonably
sized street on your right (just before the walls temporarily give out). Turn into this street, keep
more or less straight, and in about 550m, you'll emerge at Place des Ferblantiers – a major
intersection. On the south side of the square is a gate known as Bab Berrima, which opens
onto a long rectangular enclosure, flanked on either side by walls; go through it, and on your
right you'll come to the Badi's entrance.
EL MELLAH (judería)
Da cobijo al zoco de los orfebres y sus joyas básicamente en oro.
MUSEO DAR SI SAÏD
Bello edificio del siglo XIX. Alberga una importante colección de arte marroquí. Destacan: la
vestimenta femenina, la cerámica, las armas, alfombras, joyas beréberes, puertas de madera
esculpida y una hermosa pila de abluciones del siglo X, realizada en España, y que está tallada
en un solo bloque de mármol.
Also worth your while in this area is the Dar Si Said (daily except Tues 9–11.45am & 2.30–
5.45pm; Fri 9–11.30am & 3–5.45pm; 10dh admission), a smaller version of the Bahia, built by a
brother of Bou Ahmed, who, being something of a simpleton, nonetheless gained the post of
royal chamberlain. It's a pleasurable building, with beautiful pooled courtyards, scented with
lemons, palms and flowers, and it houses an impressive Museum of Moroccan Arts.
The museum is particularly strong on its collection of Berber jewellery and daggers, swords and
other weapons – boldly designed objects of great beauty. There are also fine displays of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century woodwork, some of it from the Glaoui kasbahs and most of
it in cedar wood. Besides the furniture, there are Berber doors, window frames and wonderful
painted ceilings. There are also a number of traditional wedding chairs – once widely used for
carrying the bride, veiled and hidden, to her new home. Today, such chairs are still made in the
souks and used, albeit symbolically, to carry the bride from her womenfolk in one room to the
groom's menfolk in the next room. Indeed, the video of the marriage of the late King Hassan's
eldest daughter shows this ceremony in full.
Near the entrance is the museum's most important exhibit, recently brought here from the Ben
Youssef medersa. It is a marble basin, rectangular in shape and decorated along one side with
what seem to be heraldic eagles and griffins. An inscription amid the floral decorations records
its origin in tenth-century Córdoba, then the centre of the western Muslim world; the Ommayad
caliphs, for whom it was constructed, had few reservations about representational art. What is
surprising is that it was brought over to Morocco by the highly puritan Almoravid sultan Ali Ben
Youssef and, placed in his mosque, was left untouched by the dynasty's equally iconoclastic
successors, the Almohads.
Also near the entrance, do not miss the fairground swings, shaped like a wooden Ferris wheel,
and used at moussems until the early 1960s.
Dar Si Said is on a block to the west of Riad Zitoun Djedid. You can either turn right opposite a
mosque, midway along Riad Zitoun Djedid walking from Place des Ferblantiers; or you can turn
right 100m before the mosque and, from the car park there, take the gate to the right of the
Prefecture de Marrakesh Medina as you face it with your back to the car park. This latter route
passes the Maison Tiskiwin, which is 30m inside the gate.
Koutoubia Minaret
The absence of any architectural feature on Djemaa El Fna – which even today seems like a
haphazard clearing – serves to emphasize the drama of the Koutoubia Minaret, the focus of any
approach to the city. Nearly seventy metres high and visible for miles on a clear morning, this is
the oldest of the three great Almohad towers (the others are the Hassan Tower in Rabat and
the Giralda in Seville) and the most complete. Its proportions – a 1:5 ratio of width to height –
established the classic Moroccan design. Its scale, rising from the low city buildings and the
plains to the north, is extraordinary, the more so the longer you stay and the more familiar its
sight becomes.
Meknes
FES
Fes el Bali
With its mosques, medersas and fondouks, combined with a mile-long network of souks, there
are enough "sights" in Fes El Bali to fill three or four days just trying to locate them. And even
then, you'd still be unlikely to stumble across some of them except by chance or through the
whim of a guide. In this – the apparently wilful secretiveness – lies part of the fascination, and
there is much to be said for Paul Bowles's somewhat lofty advice to "lose oneself in the crowd –
to be pulled along by it – not knowing where to and for how long … to see beauty where it is
least likely to appear". If you do the same, be prepared to really get lost. However, despite
what hustlers may tell you, the Medina is not a dangerous place, and you can always ask a boy
to lead you out towards one of its landmarks: Bab Boujeloud, Talâa Kebira, the Kairaouine
Mosque, Bab Er Rsif or Bab Ftouh.
Making your own way in purposeful quest for the souks and monuments, you should be able to
find everything we've detailed – with a little patience. If you want to avoid coinciding with tour
groups, especially in summer, try visiting the main sights between noon and 2pm, while the
groups stop for lunch. Before you start, it's not a bad idea to head up to the Merenid tombs on
the rim of the valley, where you can get a spectacular overview of the city and try to make out
its shape. For a break or escape from the intensity of the Medina, head to the Boujeloud
Gardens (officially retitled "Jardins de la Marche Verte"; open 9am–6pm), a real haven and with
a pleasant open-air café, to the west of Bab Boujeloud.
There are four principal entrances and exits to Fees El Bali:
Bab Boujeloud. The western gate, easily identified by its bright polychrome decoration and the
hotels and cafés grouped on either side.
Bab Er Rsif. A central gate, by the square (and car park) beside the Mosque Er Rsif, this is a
convenient entrance, just a few blocks below the Kairaouine Mosque. Bus #19 and bus #29 run
between the square and Avenue Mohammed V in the Ville Nouvelle, #19 continuing to the train
station, #29 to Place de l'Atlas. Bus #27 runs between the square and Dar Batha.
Bab Ftouh. The southeast gate at the bottom of the Andalous quarter, with cemeteries
extending to the south. Bus #18 runs between here and Place de l'Istiqlal (near Bab Boujeloud)
and there is also a petit taxi rank.
Bab Guissa. The north gate, up at the top of the city by the Hôtel Palais Jamai: a convenient
point to enter (or leave) the city from (or heading to) the Merenid tombs. Petits taxis are
available by the gate.
Bab Boujeloud
The area around Bab Boujeloud is today the principal entrance to Fes El Bali: a place with a
great concentration of cafés, stalls and activity where people come to talk and stare. Provincial
buses leave throughout the day from Place Baghdadi (just west of the gate), while in the early
evening there are occasional entertainers and a flea market spreading out towards the old
Mechouar (the former assembly point and government square) and to Bab El Mahrouk, an exit
onto the road to the Merenid tombs.
This focus and importance is all comparatively recent, since it was only at the end of the
nineteenth century that the walls were joined up between Fes El Bali and Fes El Djedid and the
subsequently enclosed area was developed. Nearly all the buildings here date from this period,
including those of the elegant Dar Batha palace, designed for the reception of foreign
ambassadors and now a Museum of Moroccan Arts and Crafts. Bab Boujeloud itself is
comparatively modern, too, constructed only in 1913. Its tiled facades are blue (the traditional
colour of Fes) on the outside, facing the ramparts, and green (the colour of Islam) on the
interior, facing into the Medina.
Dar Batha Museo
The Dar Batha (closed for repairs on our last visit but in principle open daily except Tues
8.30am–noon & 2.30–6pm; 10dh) is worth a visit just for its courtyards and gardens, which
offer useful respite from the general exhaustion of the Medina. The museum entrance is 30m
up the narrow lane separating it from the Hôtel Batha.
The art and crafts collections concentrate on local artisan traditions. There are examples of
carved wood, much of it rescued from the Misbahiya and other medersas; another room of
Middle Atlas carpets; and examples of zellij-work, calligraphy and embroidery.
Above all, it is the pottery rooms which stand out. The pieces, dating from the sixteenth century
to the 1930s, are beautiful and show the preservation of technique long after the end of any
form of innovation. This timeless quality is constantly asserted as you wander around Fes.
There is no concept here of the "antique" – something is either new or it is old, and if the latter,
its age could be anything from thirty years to three centuries.
This same quality is occasionally reinforced at the museum itself when the work of local cooperatives is displayed for sale.
Fes El Djedid
Unlike Fes El Bali, whose development and growth seems to have been almost organic, Fes El
Djedid – "Fes the New" – was an entirely planned city, built by the Merenids at the beginning of
their rule, as both a practical and symbolic seat of government. The work was begun around
1273 by the dynasty's second ruling sultan, Abou Youssef, and in a manic feat of building was
completed within three years. The capital for much of its construction came from taxes levied
on the Meknes olive presses; the Jews were also taxed to build a new grand mosque; and the
labour, at least in part, was supplied by Spanish Christian slaves.
The site which the Merenids chose for their city lies some distance from Fes El Bali. In the
chronicles this is presented as a strategic move for the defence of the city, though it is hard to
escape the conclusion that its main function was as a defence of the new dynasty against the
Fassis themselves. It was not an extension for the people, in any real sense, being occupied
largely by the Dar el Makhzen, a vast royal palace, and by a series of army garrisons. With the
addition of the Mellah – the Jewish ghetto – at the beginning of the fourteenth century, this
process was continued. Forced out of Fes El Bali following one of the periodic pogroms, the
Jews could provide an extra barrier (and scapegoat) between the sultan and his Muslim faithful,
as well as a useful and close-to-hand source of income.
Over the centuries, Fes El Djedid's fortunes have generally followed those of the city as a
whole. It was extremely prosperous under the Merenids and Wattasids, fell into decline under
the Saadians, lapsed into virtual ruin during Moulay Ismail's long reign in Meknes, but revived
with the commercial expansion of the nineteenth century – at which point the walls between
the old and new cities were finally joined.
At the close of the nineteenth century, the Encyclopedia Britannica noted of Fes that: "The Jews
suffer great persecutions and many indignities, but many of them continue to amass money."
Events last century, largely generated by the French Protectorate, have left Fes El Djedid
greatly changed and somewhat moribund. As a "government city", it had no obvious role after
the transfer of power to Rabat – a vacuum which the French filled by establishing a huge
quartier reservé (red-light district) in the area around the Grand Mosque. This can have done
little for the city's identity, but it was not so radical or disastrous as the immediate aftermath of
independence in 1956. Concerned about their future status, and with their position made
untenable by the Arab-Israeli war, virtually all of the Mellah's 17,000 Jewish population
emigrated to Israel, Paris or Casablanca; today only a few Jewish families remain in the Mellah,
though there is still a small community in the Ville Nouvelle.
The Jewish Community Centre (tel 05/562 2446) is at 24 Rue Zerktouni, opposite the copse
which faces the Splendid Hôtel; the current president of the community is Dr Guigui (tel 05/562
3039). With his help, or that of others at the centre, you could learn more about the community
– or about the old synagogues in Fes El Djedid.
Generally speaking, Moroccan Jews are well thought of and, at any one time, several hold high
office in the government. Similarly, Moroccan Jews who play leading roles in Israel are noted
with pride. At the same time, however, it was reported that recently a Fes hotel turned Israeli
tourists away; we have omitted it from our list.
You can reach Fes El Djedid in a ten-minute walk from Bab Boujeloud, or from the Ville
Nouvelle by walking up or taking a bus (#2 from Place de la Résistance, aka La Fiat) to Place
des Alaouites and Bab Semarine beside the Mellah.
La Mellah
With fewer than a dozen Jewish families still remaining, the Mellah is a rather melancholic
place, largely resettled by poor Muslim emigrants from the countryside. The quarter's name –
mellah, "salt" in Arabic – came to be used for Jewish ghettos throughout Morocco, though it
was originally applied only to this one in Fes. In derivation it seems to be a reference to the job
given to the Fassi Jews of salting the heads of criminals before they were hung on the gates.
The enclosed and partly protected position of the Mellah represents fairly accurately the
Moroccan Jews' historically ambivalent position. Arriving for the most part with compatriot
Muslim refugees from Spain and Portugal, they were never fully accepted into the nation's life.
Nor, however, were they quite the rejected people of other Arab countries. Inside the Mellah
they were under the direct protection of the sultan (or the local caid) and maintained their own
laws and governors.
Whether the creation of a ghetto ensured the actual need for one is, of course, debatable.
Certainly, it was greatly to the benefit of the reigning sultan, who could both depend on Jewish
loyalties and manipulate the international trade and finance which came increasingly to be
dominated by them in the nineteenth century. For all this importance to the sultan, however,
even the richest Jews had to lead extremely circumscribed lives. In Fes before the French
Protectorate, no Jew was allowed to ride or even to wear shoes outside the Mellah, and they
were severely restricted in their travels elsewhere.
El Palacio Real
Tanneries
For the tanneries quarter – the Souk Dabbaghin – take the right-hand lane at the top of Place
Seffarine (the second lane on your left if you're coming from the Palais de Fes). This lane is
known as Darb Mechattin (Combmakers' Lane), and runs more or less parallel to the river for
150m or so, eventually reaching a fork. The right-hand branch goes down to the river and Beyin
El Moudoun Bridge – another approach to the Andalous Mosque. The left branch winds up amid
a maze of eighteenth-century streets for another 150 to 200m until you see the tanneries on
your right; it sounds a convoluted route but is in fact a well-trodden one.
The most physically striking sight in Fes, the tanneries are constantly being visited by groups of
tourists, with whom you could discreetly tag along for a while if you get lost. Otherwise, follow
your nose or accept a guide up from the Place Seffarine. The best time to visit is in the
morning, when there is most activity. You will be asked to pay a small fee – 10dh is usual – to
one of the local gardiens. Shops with terraces overlooking the tanneries will often invite you in
for a look, in return for the opportunity to show you what they have for sale (generally at high
prices) – one such is the Terrasse de la Tannerie, a shop selling mostly leather goods at 10 Hay
Lablida Choura, just past the main entrance to the tanneries themselves, where the pressure to
buy is not usually too heavy (and remember: if they entice you in by telling you there's no
obligation to buy, you are perfectly within your rights to hold them to that).
There is a compulsive fascination about the tanneries. Cascades of water pour through holes
that were once the windows of houses; hundreds of skins lie spread out to dry on the rooftops;
while amid the vats of dye and pigeon dung (used to treat the leather) an unbelievably gothic
fantasy is enacted. The rotation of colours in the enormous honeycombed vats follows a
traditional sequence – yellow (supposedly "saffron", in fact turmeric), red (poppy), blue
(indigo), green (mint) and black (antimony) – though vegetable dyes have mostly been
replaced by chemicals, with worrying effects on the health of the workers involved.
This innovation and the occasional rinsing machine aside, there can have been little change
here since the sixteenth century, when Fes took over from Córdoba as the pre-eminent city of
leather production. As befits such an ancient system, the ownership is also intricately feudal:
the foremen run a hereditary guild and the workers pass down their specific jobs from
generation to generation.
The processes can best be seen from surrounding terrace rooftops, where you'll be directed
along with the other tourists. There is, oddly enough, a kind of sensuous beauty about it – for
all the stench and voyeurism involved. Sniffing the mint that you are handed as you enter (to
alleviate the nausea) and looking across at the others doing the same, however, there could
hardly be a more pointed exercise in the nature of comparative wealth. Like it or not, this is
tourism at its most extreme.
Meknes
Situada en el centro norte, a 267 km al sur de Tánger; a 60km al oeste de Fez y a 138 km al
este de Rabat. Se accede a ella por carretera y tren (aeropuerto en Fez).
Meknassa de los Olivos- (Azeitún, da origen a la españolísima palabra aceituna), es una
fundación berebere del siglo IX, pero hasta 1069 no toma su verdadero carácter, cuando los
Almorávides construyen un bastión y una alcazaba. Tras pasar por asedios, conquistas,
abandonos y reconstrucciones, Meknès alcanza su apogeo bajo el reinado de Mulay Ismail que
la hizo su capital.
Este sultán alauí, contemporáneo de Felipe IV, embelleció Meknès dotándola de murallas con
puertas monumentales, jardines, mezquitas, alcazabas y su primer palacio, Dar Kebira. El
resultado es una de las ciudades más monumentales de Marruecos.
LAS MURALLAS
Además de recorrer las murallas, callejear por la medina y regatear en los zocos, el viajero debe
dirigir sus pasos a la plaza El Hedim, inmensa explanada (200m de largo por 100 de ancho),
particularmente animada por la noche. Bordeada por construcciones modernas, entre ellas un
mercado cubierto de frutas y verduras, donde se pueden comprar sus famosas aceitunas.
BAB MANSOUR
Puerta de dimensiones colosales considerada una de las más bellas del país.
BAB JAMAA EN NOUAR
De proporciones más modestas, pero muy armoniosas.
BAB EL JEDID
Arquitectura del tiempo de los almohades.
BAB EL JEMIS
Con bellos zeligs verdes y adornos negros.
LA MEDERSA BOU INANIA
Famosa por su decoración en mosaico de loza, estuco y madera esculpida (siglo XIV) y la vista
que ofrece de la medina.
LA AVENIDA DE EL MELLAH
Antiguo barrio judío (ciudadela cerrada por tres puertas).
LA KISARIA
Mercado con los artesanos del damasquinado. En la zona El Dlala, cerca de la mezquita se
organiza todos los días a las 15h, menos los viernes, una subasta de alfombras y mantas
beréberes.
LA TUMBA DE MULAY ISMAIL
Restaurada bajo el reinado de Mohamed V.
DAR EL MA
Construido por Mulay Ismail, son unos inmensos silos abovedados, cuyos muros miden varios
metros de espesor.
EL HARAS
Espléndidas cuadras de 80 ha, donde se crían 450 caballos pura sangre. Cada animal tiene un
panel, rojo para los árabes, verde para los beréberes, con su nombre y pedigrí.
HERI ES-SOUANI Y HERI EL MANSOUR (Monumentales graneros).
EL ESTANQUE DE AGDAL (con una superficie de 4ha).
EL MUSEO DAR JAMAÏ
Como el palacio de Fez, fue construido por el visir Jamaï, ministro de Mulay el Hassan (18731894) y alberga una importante muestra de arte marroquí. Destaca una impresionante
colección de joyas provenientes de todos los lugares de Marruecos . Antiguamente, por sus
materiales y diseños, constituían un signo de identidad, tribal o geográfica de quien los llevaba.
Asimismo sobresale la sala dedicada al vestido donde se puede admirar el bordado multicolor
característico de Meknès
VOLUBILIS (27KM)
Son las ruinas de la antigua capital romana de la Mauritania Tingitana. Se pueden admirar el
foro, capitolio, mercado, arco de triunfo, termas, barrios de casas y almazaras, que constituían
su riqueza. Aunque las estatuas se encuentra en el museo de Rabat, las ruinas y los mosaicos
merecen cumplidamente la visita.
FES (60 KM)
La primera de las Ciudades Imperiales.
IFRANE (63KM)
Parece una pequeña ciudad Suiza con sus cuidados jardines y sus calles impolutas Punto de
partida para el circuito del macizo del Michliffen (donde está la estación de esquí del mismo
nombre), y también para el circuito de los lagos.