Certainly one of the most evocative itineraries in Morocco is the one that leads to the Imperial Cities region. This is a wide area that includes the Middle Atlas, where you will find historical cities, fascinating ancient Roman ruins, mountain landscapes where you can ski in winter, and the dunes and Berber oases of the desert. Here you will find all the best of Morocco and its millennial history.
The medinas of Fés and Meknes (UNESCO World Heritage Site) are among the most beautiful and characteristic in the country, as well as the oldest.
The medina of Fés el-Bali and Fes el-Jedid, with its 1,200 years of history, preserves the stratifications of all the most glorious dynasties that have succeeded one another in Morocco, which have made Fes the spiritual and cultural centre of the country, a unique entity that cannot even be compared to Marrakech. Getting lost in its narrow, winding alleyways, among its 60 public fountains and its historical and religious monuments, rich in inlaid woodwork and colourful zellij tiles, including Morocco’s oldest university, the 9th-century Quarouiyine, is a unique experience that culminates in a picturesque visit to the leather tannery, with its large, brightly-coloured clay pots, undoubtedly the most photographed in the world!
The medina of Meknes is decidedly smaller and overshadowed by neighbouring Fés, but no less interesting. Its fascinating historical buildings bear witness to its past glory as a Moroccan sultanate of the Merinid era, but above all as a sumptuous Alawite capital in the ‘Ishmaelian style’. This ancient city is located in one of the most fertile areas of the country, from which most of Morocco’s orange, olive, grape and cereal harvests come.
It was no coincidence that first the Carthaginians in the 3rd century BC and then the Romans in 40 AD settled here, 35 km from Meknes, in the city of Volubilis, which today is the best preserved archaeological site in the whole of Morocco. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, its most interesting and surprising attraction are the beautiful mosaics and colonnades.
Just a few kilometres from Volubilis another attraction is the town of Moulay Idriss, named after Morocco’s most revered saint and a major pilgrimage destination for Moroccan Muslim believers. The tomb of this saint, a great-grandson of Mohammed, who converted the city of Volubilis to Islam in the 7th century, is located in the heart of this holy city among its white buildings. At the end of August, this mausoleum is the object of the country’s biggest moussem (religious festival).
