Day 3: I woke up early and couldn’t sleep well. Either I shouldn’t have napped on the bus yesterday (impossible, I sleep so well on moving vehicles) or it was jet lag. Probably a combination.
I went upstairs to the rooftop restaurant for breakfast and enjoyed some nice views, fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, and some other items. Breakfast in Morocco is a lot of bread and jam, but this hotel had a great spread overall, which made up for the room a bit.
We checked out of the hotel and went to meet our guide for a walking tour of Meknes Medina. I loved this place! I could have wandered for days through the alleys and looking at all the doors. The guide was the opposite of the day before in some ways, always fussing at us to get closer together and hurry up, stay together. He gave tons of information and was terrific.
I took so many pictures as I didn’t even know where to look.
According to the whats app plan, we visited the Old gate Bab Lakhmiss, the Jewish Quarter and the mausoleum of the founder of Meknes, Moulay Ismail.
At the end of the tour they took us into a little store with some handicrafts and showed up how people made ceramics and put wiring on them to make beautiful patterns. Of course they wanted us to buy things but it wasn’t uncomfortable, just an opportunity. When in Morocco, you do these things.
We got back on the bus, next stop was the grocery store again. We got supplies for a picnic lunch and then headed towards Volubilis. Lunch was at a cafe with a nice view that sold drinks and kefta but nothing else. Some of us ordered kefta to share and we had way too much, but it was delicious. I also enjoyed a fresh squeezed orange juice as well as a soda.
After finishing our lunch it was a short drive to Volubilis, a Unesco World Heritage Site and ancient Roman ruins. In Morocco, did you know the romans made it that far south? We had a really nice tour through the area. It was fascinating to see how before the Arabs, the Romans were here first.
Fun fact: the Australians didn’t know that St Louis has an arch! I enlightened everybody with this knowledge. They asked why?
From there we had a long drive on winding roads to Chefchaouen, our stop for the night. I should note that I took Dramamine each day when we started on the bus and if you are at all prone to motion sickness it’s worth doing. Several people felt ill on this drive, which was pretty until darkness fell.
We got to Chefchaouen right after dark, and were amazed by our hotel: Dar Echchaouen Maison d’hôtes & Riad. It was a step up from the night before! Too bad it was already dark and we were only staying one night.
What usually happened when we got a hotel was that we got off the bus and waited a bit while somebody unloaded the luggage and our guide got the keys, then he would distribute each room based on our needs. This hotel: when we entered the gate there was a lovely courtyard, then various beautiful lobby rooms. My room was up a flight of stairs, back outside, and shared a common room with another room (which was the other single woman.) The room itself was large with a beautiful bathroom. It also had a view of the pool, which of course it was too cold to swim, but would be lovely. If you were at the pool, you could see the whole village on the hill.
But, we got settled quickly and then headed out for dinner as a group–not everybody joined but I wanted to.
Chefchaouen is known as the “Blue City”. You’ll see why. Also, our guide Aman was from Chefchaouen so he felt very at home here, and took us to one of his favorite restaurants, but first it was a walk through the medina.
And then it was back to the hotel for sleep. I was exhausted from sight-seeing, travel, and excitement. I will say: this was not a late night tour group. You could stay out later, of course, but I never wanted to as I was always exhausted by the end of the day, even after I was over jet lag. We were hopeful for a free morning in Chefchaouen on our own…hopeful that the weather would hold and we wouldn’t have rain! To be continued…