Meknes

After breakfast we were taken to a high point overlooking the city of Meknes.

I am still fascinated by the orange trees. The fruit looks so good and the oranges I have eaten in Morocco are very tasty.

Curious building just below the viewpoint. I think it is a restaurant.

It's not often that you see sheep in a large city.

Morocco is a much more advanced country than I had thought. Here are play things for children.

One of the gates to the old city.

The holes are designed to stop the walls cracking in the heat.

We passed through the Jewish Quarter. There used to be a large Jewish population in Morocco of 250,000 in the 1940's but most migrated to Israel and now there are only 5000 in the whole country.  Here is more info about the Jews in Morocco.

Water storage fed by a stream fromthe nearby mountains.

It is 319 x 149 meters, with a depth of 2 m.

We were told what this statue was but I have since forgotten. Hopefully I will remember.

We then entered the Royal Stables which is a massive structure designed to hold 12,000 horses. You can read more about the stables here.

The structure was heavily damaged in an earthquake so most of the roof is gone but the columns remain. The columns are laid out to give amazing views along the rows and diagonals. 

Apparently this has been used as a location in several films.

Some of the corridors need weeding on a grand scale.

There is a curious doorway where digital cameras are fooled into seeing a green glow in the next room. You don't see the green glow with the naked eye. It shows up on phone cameras as well.

Part of a water wheel mechanism to raise water from the underground water table.

Condensation can form on the dome and then trickles down the side and is collected.

Gateway to the golf course which is placed within the Palace.

We then went to the obligatory shop where we could buy objects we don't need.

I don't really need a dagger. Who does?

This is the roof of a jail known as the Qara Prison. Below the surface is a maze and it is very easy to get lost. We did not go down there.

Part of the local wool market.

Closeup of the city walls. As well as the normal mud and rock, they incorporated ceramics and animal bones.

If you look at the sign you will see Arabic writing and then another style of writing underneath. That is Berber and you can read about it here. It is a very old script and is being reintroduced to students.

These are Petit Taxis which are coloured blue in Meknes. In other cities they are all red. Fares are inexpensive and the cars appear to be newish.

We walked into the market are.

Where you can buy your tagine (clay pot).

Nougat.

As you might expect, olives were for sale.

Morocco is a meat eating country and it looked good.

Garlic.

Notice the turtles to the rear of the red peppers.

This is part of the medina and it was a maze of narrow passages.

One of the younger members of our group who comes from Canada.

One of our group bought some of these strawberries and after washing them I tried one. It was delicious.

It's fun wandering around the narrow passages.

More of the group as we sat in a very small alcove where were to get to eat a camel burger. The whole restaurant including kitchen was about 6' x 10'. Only six of us could fit in and the other six went to another restaurant of similar size on the other side of the alley.

We all had mint tea, essentially tea with a big sprig of mint.

My burger. It was very tasty indeed and much better than MacDonalds.

Then we were out of the maze of the medina and into the square where some musicians were playing.