Continued from Fes Day 1.

This is the view I woke up to this morning. How awesome is this?

Carved stone. So amazing.

Breakfast in our room, cool.

The staircase behind the door on the street entering our riad. So you open the door off of the street and it is immediately stairs. We both thought this was actually really cool. At the top of the stairs, it leads to the left (the center courtyard of our riad) or the right (a medium sized breakfast and TV room).

The staff at the riad told us that since it’s Friday, most of the shops in the medina will be closed since it’s the Muslim’s day of rest. He suggested that we take a trip to Volubilis to see the Roman ruins instead. That’s something that was on our list already, so we’ll do just that.

Looking at Google maps to find our way out of the old city, to a taxi, and then to a train to Meknes, a neighboring city.

Found a taxi immediately, nice.

Here’s at the train station in Fes. We’ve got about 15min before the hourly train leaves for Meknes. Hopefully we’ll have time to buy the ticket and get on the train instead of waiting here for another whole hour.

There’s a line, but it went by pretty quickly.

Alright, let’s get on the train.

35min train ride, not too bad.

Made it to Meknes.

We negotiated with a grand taxi (larger non-shared taxi) to take us to Volubilis, wait for us there, take us to Moulay Idriss, then back to Meknes.

Our driver proudly told us he is Berber. He was a very nice man and a very good driver. He told us he had been a driver for 37 years.

Hah.

The nicer houses in Meknes.

Soon, we were in the country side. Not much sprawl, unlike most cities in America.

Much agricultural land here, and many many olive groves.

Old school, plowing with a horse.

It’s spring and everything is in bloom. I’m surprised my allergies aren’t worse here right now.

So much agave here in Morocco. They are mostly planted at the edges of roads and the edges of property lines. Why?

Moulay Idriss up ahead. Pretty cool small city up on the mountain side.

Looking imposing as we get closer.

Old school.

Donkey blocking traffic.

Volubilis up ahead. It’s taken us about 40min to get here from Meknes train station.

Took a picture of our taxi so we can find it when we are done here. Driver said about an hour or hour and a half here should be enough time.

Forgot to turn the boosted warmth filter on the phone. Oops.

Wildflower are in major bloom right now. The fields have little butterflies and bees going crazy over all the flowers.

We are such parents. Disney hat and Rachael’s Disney travel bag.

So many flowers and so many butterflies and bees.

Giant variant of dandelion.

Say Volubilis!

It’s an old Roman ruin, what is there to say?

I do wonder how everything fell apart though unless it got destroyed on purpose.

There’s zero shade out here, good thing it’s overcast and it’s not too hot. Apparently it was very hot out here yesterday.

Lots of mosaics just out in the open. The one was a man riding a donkey backwards.

Tourist. And an interloper.

Some old leftover equipment from when they did the excavation and restoration. There’s still much of this site that hasn’t been restored.

Fig growing out from the rocks.

Bath?

Some patterns have been around for thousands of years.

More baths?

All roads lead to Rome.

What’s this crazy looking plant/seed?

Took us about an hour to see Volubilis at a leisurely place. I can see how others could take much longer if they really took their time though. Now, back in our taxi and onwards to Moulay Idriss, which is about 5 minutes from here by car.

To be continued at Fes Day 2 Part 2, Moulay Idriss.