We left the B&B in the southern oustskirts of Meknes and rode through the city to see the walls & gates. The city has an imperial past, the Sultan Moulay Ismail having made it his capital in the 17th century.
It is surrounded by walls, which on the route I took were in two sets, so you rode between them.
With periodic small gates...
.... before reaching Bab Mansour, a huge gate with arches and mosaic tiling.
From there we tracked thorugh the rest of the city, a lot of traffic and out onto the open road....
... and into the pleasant countryside just north of Meknes
We were heading first for the ancient city of Volubilis.
Volubilis is a partly excavated Berber and Roman city, commonly considered as the ancient capital of the kingdom of Mauretania.
It was taken by local tribes around AD 285 but was never retaken by Rome because of its remoteness and indefensibility on the south-western border of the Roman Empire.
The site became the seat of Idris ibn Abdallah, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty and the state of Morocco. By the 11th century however, Volubilis had been abandoned after power transferred to Fes. Much of the local population was moved to the new town of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, which we the rode through and looked upon from the hill.
From there it was scheduled to be main road all the way to our next stop, which was fine for a while but the hot wind was picking up along with the traffic.
So I diverted down some small roads that headed in roughly the same direction.
Very pleasant local farming area, these ladies were lifting buckets if water from a well and pouring into large bags on the back of the donkey.
Here too was the brown Djellaba again, much in evidence.
We rejoined the main road some time later, by which time the cross wind was even stronger and was making cornering quite scary on occasions ( you lean into a corner and half way round a violent gust whips you upright again - tends to spoil you line somewhat and quite unerving if a truck is cutting the corner in the opposite direction!)
After battling on for an hour, we stopped for a while in the hills, which were starting to look distinctly mediterranean rather than African.....
..... and watched a shepherd herd his goats.
He decided to move them up the hill and across the main road - quite a risky task on a blind bend given the frequency of high speed traffic that kept appearing.
They all made it across safely - just!
One of my readers remarked yesterday on the absence of 'selfies' ... so here you are Griff, enjoy!
I'm currently trying to work out how to change the beard shade to something more like this .... 😉
Then it was a largely uneventful ride to the 'blue city' of chefchaouen - our last stop in Africa.
Having a rest day here before tacking the port back to Spain - so expect some touristy travel shots tomorrow.
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