Meknes Things to Do

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Meknes was the imperial capital of Moulay Ismail. He built a large prison under the old city for Christian sailors captured at sea. In the Koubt Essoufara (Ambassador's Pavilion) Moulay Ismail would receive ambassadors from other countries, often to plead for the return of their countrymen. Little did they know - their countrymen laid shackled just below them. Just to the right of the pavilion were the stairs down to the prison where up to 60,000 prisoners were held (40,000 of them, reportedly Christian prisoners of war). Prisoners were shackled to the wall and had to sleep standing up.

The prison was built by the Portugese architect Cara, who was also a prisoner. He earned his freedom by constructing the prison.

There are many stories about secret tunnels to the Royal palace. In fact, there have been several efforts to verify these stories leading to death and injury in cave-ins. All access is now closed.

The prison is definitely worth a visit.

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Moulay Ismail or Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif was the second ruler of the Alaouite dynasty. He, like his predecesors, claimed to be a descendant of Muhammad and therefore earns the title 'Moulay'. He ruled from 1672 to 1727. He was only 26 when he came to the throne of a country weakened by internal tribal wars and royal successions. He established Meknes as his capita,l and with such extravagance! It became known as the 'Versailles of Morocco'. During his reign the capital moved to Fes.

The final resting place of Sultan Moulay Ismail was once the courthouse of Meknes and is one of the few sacred sites in Morocco open to non-muslims. The building has a rather plain exterior but a series of pale-yellow, calm courtyards lead to the splendid tomb. It is a cool peaceful room, the opposite of his turbulent and cruel reign.

Non-muslims have no access to the tomb itself, but it can be seen through a Moorish doorway. The anteroom is decorated with fine examples of Moroccan design - zellij tiling, enamel-painted wood, elaborately carved plaster, graceful arches, and marble columns.

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Don't ignore the Ville Nouvelle, the new city originally planned by the French, as it contains some great Art deco buildings if you're willing to look for them. Some of the hotels are very attractive, particularly the Hotel de Nice and the Hotel majestic (where I stayed). I regret not taking more photos in the Ville Nouvelle, but I only had a look round in the evening and am yet to discover the secret of taking good photos at night. However, I did get two pictures of this rather attractive red and white cinema.

Aside from Art Deco, find your way to the town hall, an impressive building on a pleasant square which housed a small funfair when I went. Around the square are several upmarket patisseries and ice cream parlours. For more coffee and cakes, you don't have to look far, as pretty much the whole of Avenue Mohamed V and Avenue Hassan II (the two main streets) are taken up with pavement cafes.

Finally, for good views over the medina on the opposite hill, have a look at the busy park at the end of Avenue Hassan II just after the MacDonalds complex.

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Next to the Heri es Souani is a large reservoir, the Agdal Basin, now a pleasant park with benches under trees, sculptures and a fountain in the middle. I don't know if this is another royal relic or if this is a new construction, but it is about as big as the granaries that run along one side of it. There must be either a university or some sort of college nearby, because there were a hell of a lot of students hanging around here, many of whom were quite chatty and had lots of questions about my impressions of their city. A crowd gathered at one end to watch a man throw sticks into the reservoir for his dog, a big shaggy alsatian that seemed to enjoy swimming and being the centre of attention. The crowd soon dispersed when he gave up swimming, and decided to shake himself dry...

To get back to the medina, I decided not to backtrack, as I couldn't face the long long stretch of walled in road, so found my way into another old neighbourhood, again inside Imperial walls, emerging at Bab el Qari by the New Mellah (a Mellah is an area traditionally for Jewish residents, but this one was Jewish in name only). The road continued past a bus station and some gardens, and eventually brought me back to Place el Hedim for a well earned glass of mint tea.

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From the Dar el Kebira quarter, there's a very long road with unbroken walls on either side. On one side you have the Sidi Amar quarter, and on the other, the Royal Golf Club and Dar al Makhzen, the current Royal palace, both unfortunately off limits and out of sight for the most part. It was April, so the sun wasn't too strong, but I can imagine the walk out to Heri es Souani must be a hot and quite boring one in summer. On the way, you pass a couple of small but picturesque gates in the walls leading to tiny residential quarters, but mostly it is just wall and road, all the way around the edge of the Imperial City.

At the very end of this road, the Heri es Souani is actually a bit of a let down. The Sultan's granaries don't sound terribly exciting, and the reality isn't much different, the only amazing thing about them is really the scale of the project. One huge vaulted chamber leads into another huge vaulted chamber, some with a bit of lighting, some left in darkness. A couple of exhibits filled some of the smaller rooms, but it was too dark to see much, and there was next to no information on offer, apart from the ticket price (10 dirhams). The best bit is the outside section, which perhaps once had a roof but is now a vast complex of sand-coloured archways and columns. Workmen are strewn about the place fixing bits of wall and replacing a few bricks, but you do get the impression of being in an abandoned ruined warehouse, albeit a 17th century royal one on a massive scale.

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Within the walls of the Imperial City are now two residential quarters, neither particularly imperial any more, and in places are really quite rundown. The first, entered through a low archway just before Bab el Rih and the long "corridor" between walls, is Dar el Kebira, once the site of one of the Sultan's palaces. Today, you can still find traces of the old palace, enormous rooms converted into covered passageways or sectioned off into much smaller houses. Signs tell you that a couple of riad hotels have opened in this quarter, but they're not easy to track down.

I somehow found my way through a break in the palace walls and entered another even more dilapidated residential quarter, Sidi Amar, where old and new houses are crammed together in narrow narrow alleyways barely wide enough for two people to pass without touching. People were somewhat surprised to see a foreigner walking around here, surprising as it is just the other side of a wall from a route which tour groups always pass down on their way to Heri es Souani (the royal granaries), but everyone was friendly and helped me find my way back out again!

No pictures, I'm afraid, apart from these two gates to one of the quarters, I forget which.

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My mum knows I have a thing for all things Middle Eastern/North African, and used to send me greetings cards with market scenes from Egypt, mountains from Yemen, and camels from Jordan on them. Once, she sent me a card with a beautiful yellow arched doorway to a tiled courtyard, but the card didn't say where this was. Well, as soon as I entered Moulay Ismail's mausoleum, I realised I already knew this place...

Unusually for Islamic monuments in Morocco, this mausoleum is open to non-muslims who can enter the courtyard and look into the room containing the actual tomb, although that room is reserved for Muslim visitors only. You enter through a low doorway into a dark corridor, which leads to the bright yellow courtyard I described above. The arched doorway takes you into another beautiful courtyard, from where you can enter the prayer hall with a fountain in the middle. The shrine is next door, seen through a grille. inside, the Sultan Moulay Ismail's tomb attracts many local visitors.

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Across the road from Place el Hedim are the walls of the Imperial City, formerly accessed by two large gates, the most impressive of which is Bab Mansour. Sultan Moulay Ismail commissioned the construction of most of the Imperial City, and legend has it that when he saw the ornamental gateway completed, he asked the architect, a man named El Mansour, whether this was the best he could do. Fearing that the wrong answer might lead to his death, the architect was not sure how to answer. If he said yes, the Sultan might not be happy with the gate and have him executed for not doing better. If he said no, he might be given the chance of building a better gate later, but it was still risky. So tentatively he replied "no", and the Sultan said "well, why didn't you make this one better, then?" and promptly had the man executed.

Bab Djemaa en Nouar is the smaller version just a bit further up the road, notable because this gate does actually fit in a photo whereas Bab Mansour is just that little bit too big!

Nowadays, neither door leads anywhere really, as the gates are closed and a new break in the walls has been made to allow cars access to Place Lalla Aouda just inside the walls.