Meknes

Moulay Ismail ringed the city with forty kilometres of rammed earth walls. Bab Mansour opens onto El Hedim square, and the Heri es-Souani granaries stay cool at the height of summer thanks to walls several metres thick. Volubilis lies about thirty kilometres north.

Meknes is an imperial city that visitors often cross too quickly, between Fes and Rabat. It deserves a night.

Moulay Ismail ringed it with forty kilometres of rammed earth walls, built over thirty years at the end of the seventeenth century. What remains is vast and oddly quiet.

Bab Mansour opens onto El Hedim square. Its marble columns come from Volubilis, taken from the Roman site a few kilometres away.

The Heri es Souani granaries held grain and water for twelve thousand horses. The walls are metres thick, and it stays cool inside in August without any machinery.

Volubilis is some thirty kilometres away. The Roman town kept its mosaics in place, in the houses where they were laid, and you walk among the columns without barriers.

The Saiss plain produces olive oil and wine. The olive harvest begins in November, and the mills run day and night for six weeks.