Continued from Fes Day 2 Part 1, Volubilis.

A short drive from Volubilis leads us to the small town of Moulay Idriss.

How cute.

Heading up the mountain and approaching their main square.

Alright, here’s the main square in the center(ish) of town.

At the center is the entrance to the tomb/mosque of Moulay Idris I.

There’s a bar at around chest height so that everyone has to bow down to enter. No women and no non-muslims allowed inside, so we didn’t go into the complex. Though maybe muslim women are allowed into an outer portion of the mosque?

This wood reminds me of the wood burning smell in India.

We weren’t allowed in the religious complex, but there’s two high up terraces where you can see over the town and the top of the tomb. However, unlike Tangier or Fes, google maps shows zero streets in the town of Moulay Idriss. We are literally just wandering through unmarked pedestrian roads.

KL points, at no where because we have no idea where to go. My theory is that we just find stairs and keep on walking up and see where that leads us. By the way, the smell here reminds me of India. I don’t know what kind of wood they are burning, but the smell here reminds me strongly of the wood burning fires that I smelled everywhere in India.

At some point this guy pointed us the way. And at some point he kept on walking in front of us. And at some point, we realized that he was our guide and we were going to have to pay him. Which was fine because there was no way we could have navigated this one on our own like we usually do.

Our taxi driver said that it would be roughly $10 if we wanted a guide to show us around and that it would be nearly impossible to find the view point if we didn’t have a guide. I believe him, because it’s like a maze in here and there is no map for me to reference.

He walks really fast, we are huffing and puffing a little bit trying to keep up with him through all these hills and steps.

Found the first view point. You can see Volubilis out in the distance. The green roof building is the Moulay Idris I tomb complex.

Pretty cool viewing spot.

Round minaret. Really love the green color tiles. The guid kept telling us that it is the only round one in Morocco, all other ones are square.

Finally heading downhill. That was quite the brisk cardio workout.

With the help of our guide, we were able to find our way down. Without help, I think we would have wandered around here for quite a while and never found anything. Paid our $10 (I offered $4, he asked for $20, settled on $10), and we were happy to have seen what wanted to see without too much trouble.

The entrance to Moulay Idriss complex, everyone bows before entering…unless you are a small child, then you bow to no one. Idris I was supposed to be a distant descendent of The Prophet, and every August there’s a huge pilgrimage here.

Right across from the exit onto the town square has a fleet of cool cars. Don’t know why these are here.

It’s a little bit after lunch time, and our driver suggested that we eat at his favorite spot here, sure. They’ve got lamb, turkey (maybe chicken?) and kefta. We picked kefta, lamb, and also paid for our driver’s lunch.

RL and our driver.

Not a bad lunch spot at all.

Local olives. They were RL’s favorite olives thus far.

Cooking our lunch.

Yummmm. It was a nice change from tajine. The lamb tasted like no lamb I’ve ever tasted in my life. It tasted exactly like beef, not gamey at all. I even had to double check with the restaurant that it was indeed lamb. It was very delicious, and I don’t even like lamb.

Time to head back to Meknes train station and then catch a train back to Fes from our day trip out here.

So many olive trees.

Back in Meknes.

Back at the train station, waited in line to buy a ticket and lucky us, the train arrives in 5 minutes. Sweet.

Double checking that this is the right platform. The message board on the platform says it’s for a different train, but the station attendant says it’s this platform…

The attendant was right of course, the train is here and on time.

Here’s RL laughing at all of my jokes. It’s a thing.

In about 35 minutes or so we were back in Fes station. We went to the ticket office to see if we can change our tickets that we had for Marrakesh from aisle seats to window seats, but it was a no go. Oh well.

Taxi back to the old city.

Back into the medina alleyways.

Back to our riad.

This is the most beautiful building I’ve ever stayed in.

My really happy place. I’m just in awe of this room.

Out to hunt down a bar. There aren’t really any bars here. However, you can usually find “bars” as a part of hotels or riads. Thats where we’re headed now, to a hotel that has a rooftop terrace/restaurant/cocktails. Keyword being cocktails.

So many winding alleyways with probably amazingness hidden behind them.

Found the place. For most places in Fes, you don’t really see the place you are looking for until you are literally at the doors, and even then, there’s not much signage.

Feels a little fancy already.

The door was locked at first. Some other travelers who were also locked outside with us joked that this was their way of keeping the riff-raff out. But someone came fairly soon and let us in.

Fancy indeed, this is a 5 star hotel. Probably one of the nicest, if not the nicest riad inside the medina here in Fes.

More polish, yes, but our riad is just as beautiful and much more original. I remember looking at booking here as well, but their rooms were much more western and I was looking for a more Moroccan experience.

They do have a nice garden here. It is nice.

Tiny 3 person elevator.

The terrace bar. In order to come here as a non resident guest, you are required to purchase a $20 minimum spend food/drink ticket. That’s fine, we’ll easily outspend that on drinks.

RL ruining my pano photo.

And also again.

They do have quite the amazing view from up here.

We also managed to snatch us some premium seats in front next to the glass railings.

Cigarette burns are bad, ok.

Drinks! To be honest, we didn’t think it would be this hard to find liquor in Fes. Again, the driest city I’ve ever been to. I will say though…these cocktails were not good. The most acidic drinks we’ve ever had.

Ahhh, roof top bar in Fes, this is the stuff.

We figured we’ll eat some snacks here as well before we head out to dinner after some drinks here.

Fish. They are all like egg rolls, but apparently Moroccan. Each had a different filling. They were quite good.

Beautiful view, and the temperature is just about perfect with the sun slowly setting behind us.

OK, another round of drinks (this time just a gin and tonic because that’s hard to mess up) and it’s down and away to look for dinner.

The Marinid tombs. It’s on a hill right outside of old town, supposed to give a great view of the medina. But this terrace is almost just as good. It was pretty awesome getting a drink up here. Worth it for the view alone.

Back in the maze to look for our dinner restaurant.

Found it.

This looks beautiful and promising.

Damnit, apparently the restaurant was too beautiful and too promising. They were full with their reservations and were not taking walk-ins anymore. Now, we’ll need to walk a little farther away and look for another restaurant.

Just some randomly open doorway.

Cats playing sniff ass.

Dodging the very few motor bikes that we see around here.

Oh, here’s the restaurant we were looking for. All these places appear as a surprise at the last second as you walk upon it.

Quite a beautiful courtyard that opens right out into the alleyway.

The first person I’ve seen praying since I’ve been to Morocco. Everyday multiple times a day we hear the call to prayer from the mosques all around us.

Beautiful spot here as well. Can’t wait to eat.

Really enjoying the peaceful and chill vibe here.

The Moroccan salad. It’s like little tapas dishes that you eat with bread. Quite good.

What a beautiful evening, it’s perfect out here.

Chicken tajine.

Chicken couscous. This is the first time I’ve seen couscous offered. Almost all restaurant in the medina serve Moroccan fare, and only moroccan fare. And even at that, they all serve the same Moroccan fare, so it was nice to find something different like couscous.

Yum.

Look, another banana flower! Love it.

Kids are out late playing. There are no open fields or parks inside here, so the pedestrian alleyways are their playground.

We got back to our riad and took a photo of me standing in our shower. You can totally see someone taking a shower in there from across the courtyard. We may need to resort to taking showers with the bathroom lights off so you can’t see in.

Yes! On a whim, we asked the staff at our riad if they had any liquor. We know they have beer, but we haven’t heard or seen anything about liquor. They proceeded to bring us an entire bottle of unopened Grey Goose vodka. This riad is the best!!!

Some Orangina mixer from our fridge, and we are going to keep this party going for another couple of drinks until bed time. Excellent day in Fes and Meknes today.

To be continued at Fes Day 3 Part 1.