Borrowing from Coleridge's epic but unfinished poem, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree.” We are not in Xanadu, Kubla Khan never put a foot in Africa. But someone sure decreed a pleasure palace for King Mohammed VI (Morocco is a constitutional monarchy). Today we visited the palace of the King. Located in a 207.5 acre complex which houses not only the king’s residence and offices, but also most of the main ministries of government. We saw the offices of education, defense, and religion. We could not actually go inside the palace, a policy maintained whether the king is there or not. But the buildings from the outside were awe-inspiring. Our guide provided a great deal of information about the king, the attempted coups in 1971 and 1972, and older history of the dynasty.
We were driven to the Chellah which is the old fort that guarded Rabat in the middle ages. We could not go inside the gates as there is a major archeological excavation taking place. It seems that a few years ago as they were digging to uncover a few more Moorish ruins they discovered a very large Roman fortress was underneath, and part of the foundation for all that came later.
We then visited the beautiful Mausoleum of Mohammed V, the grandfather of the current king. He spent time in exile during some of the Spanish and French Colonization and was the king when colonization ended. This is one of the oldest dynasties in the world, starting in 1631.
Mausoleum Ceiling
Mohamed V's Tomb
The old and the new
Guarding the dead
Unfinished Minaret
Horseback Guards of the Tomb
Our last adventure of the day was to walk to a very Moroccan restaurant where we enjoyed a pre-planned meal. The food was good and eating in this old building was fantastic. At this point most of the Ohio State Group were driven back to the hotel. Sandy and I opted to walk through the shops of the souks. We looked into the hundreds and hundreds of sidewalk shops as we were jostled along the alleyways. We spent just short of two hours there before we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. I did try my hand at haggling, and ended up buying a treasure
My haggling antagonist, Sandy with our new treasure
The covered souks
Oranges everywhere
A couple of vendors passing the time
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.