MOROCCO: A RAINBOW OF COLOURS

MOROCCO 11-20 NOVEMBER 2018 TO SEE ALL THE PHOTOS GO TO MY BLOG:

A trip to Morocco, in November, turned out to be a pleasant surprise, ten intense days: from the imperial cities to the desert, from the kasbahs to the Atlas mountains, all the way to the ocean.

Our tour starts from Casablanca, which welcomes us with almost summer-like weather... though it won't last long. We begin with an evening stroll passing through the great Piazza Mohammed V, framed by public buildings such as the Palace of Arms, the Palace of Justice and the Governor's Palace. The streets around the square are rich in buildings where Moorish style blends with Art Deco, such as the Post Office or the Chamber of Commerce, the Cinema Rialto theatre and the Petit Poucet bar where artists and writers once gathered.

The next morning, before leaving Casablanca, we head to the great Hassan II Mosque, the third largest in the world after those of Mecca and Medina. It is imposing, along the sea with the square in front just as majestic. We immediately notice that the minaret has a square rather than circular base, as in other mosques, and this is a characteristic of all the mosques in Morocco. Built in 1993 to celebrate the 60th birthday of the late King Hassan II. Its spectacular position on the ocean evokes a verse from the Koran, according to which God's throne was built upon the water. Crossing the residential district of Anfa and passing near the Royal Palace, we leave Casablanca to head to Meknes, an ancient imperial city encircled by three concentric rings of walls.

The gateway to the old city, Bab el Mansour, stands right opposite the El Hedim square, which recalls the characteristics of the famous Jemaa el Fna in Marrakech, though on a small scale and without the hordes of tourists found there. Here too there are street vendors of every kind and street artists. The square is dominated by a panoramic terrace. Last stop of the day, the archaeological site of Volubilis, a Roman city with more than 20,000 inhabitants. You can visit the remains of the Basilica, the baths, the patrician houses with fine mosaics, although unfortunately the state of conservation is a little lacking, and the triumphal arch. Although some parts have been rebuilt, the complex is very striking, also because of its position, surrounded by fertile fields. It was in fact a thriving agricultural community for the production of olive oil. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In the evening we arrive in Fes. The following day is dedicated to visiting the city, Morocco's cultural centre, where scholars, craftsmen and imams were formed. Famous, among other things, also for the artisanal production of ceramics. The factories that produce them offer a wide choice of objects of every kind. We then venture into the medina, one of the largest in the Arab world, home to more than 70,000 people. We start from the Andalusian quarter. We are lucky to be a small group and this allows our guide to take us into this part of the old city usually not frequented by tourists. Here farmers come from the countryside to sell their produce.

A maze of narrow alleys where it is practically impossible to find your bearings, a continuous coming and going of people busy with their daily activities, carts of all sizes pulled by hand or by donkeys; then suddenly, as if by magic, fountains with mosaics, the doors of mosques or Koranic schools open up before our eyes. Inside the buildings, in these dark and claustrophobic streets, a world hidden from the eyes of those who pass by quickly opens up. We peek inside a mosque, but we cannot enter as we are not Muslims; this rule applies throughout Morocco since the time of French rule, when some worshippers were killed inside a mosque. Not far away is the Medersa el Attarine, a Koranic school founded in 1325, with its characteristic mosaic tile, zellij, stucco and carved cedar wood elements.

The mihrab, the niche facing Mecca, is surrounded by onyx columns.

We plunge back into the streets of the medina, this time in the traders' area, cross the streets dedicated to fabrics and visit the tanneries. Climbing up onto the terraces you can see the vats from above; the spectacle is very evocative and the smell very strong, especially in the morning when the vats are full; for the visit, fresh mint leaves are offered to hold close to your nostrils; now it's afternoon, so both the smell and the colours are muted. Also interesting is a visit to the Nejjarine Museum of wooden crafts, housed inside a funduq, a caravanserai for travelling merchants. The rooms overlook a courtyard and contain fine craft objects. At the top is a café from which you can get a view from above and sip a mint tea.

We leave this part of the medina to come back round the other side, where one of the most beautiful gates is found, blue on the outside and green on the inside. We leave the medina for good to reach Piazza des Alaouites, where the Royal Palace stands, obviously not open to visitors inside, so you have to content yourself with admiring the 7 portals from outside; although recent, they are very striking with their refined zellij and cedar wood inlays. The following day we leave Fes and head south towards the desert. We pass through the Middle Atlas plateau, with landscapes alternating between barren areas and forests of cedar and holm oak. When we reach the Erfoud area, palm groves begin to appear along with the classic Ksar buildings, enclosed centres surrounded by walls within which the structures are made of straw and clay.

You'll find shops, granaries and dwellings, as well as the castle. The landscape around us is spectacular and heralds that we will soon reach the desert, passing first through the rocky one and then on to the sand dunes. We set off by jeep from what will be our accommodation for the night, the Xaluca Hotel, in perfect harmony with the surrounding landscape; after about an hour's drive we are at the dunes, just in time to enjoy a walk on foot or on a dromedary's back; we are lucky because the day is beautiful, the sky clear, and waiting for the sunset on the dunes is a great emotion.... The following day we continue our journey south, approaching the border with Algeria, crossing the rocky desert again; along the way there are quite a few wells for water.

We head towards the Todra Gorge, passing through villages and palm groves, along the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs, true fortresses, castles. Like the Ksar, these too are typical Berber constructions; the kasbahs were usually the residence of the "caid", local administrators, during their stops between one battle and another. Some are half-destroyed, others still well maintained and open to visitors. We reach Ouarzazate, once famous because in its Kasbah of Taourirt, for centuries, the populations of the surrounding valleys gathered to discuss business. Since the 1950s the town has become famous because its surroundings have been used by the film industry as the setting for several famous films. Thus the Ouallywood film studios were born.

We visit the Kasbah of Taourirt, preserved and restored in some rooms as it has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We make our way through the maze of rooms, passing the prayer room and the rooms of the concubines, splendid in their Moorish architecture with polychrome stuccoes and original inlaid wooden ceilings.

Towards evening we reach Ait Ben Haddou and head to our accommodation, the Boutique Hotel Ksar Ighnda, perfectly integrated into the surrounding village. The hotel buildings blend with the surrounding houses: the wood-fired oven where the village women go in the morning to bake bread, the small mosque, the shops. As it is sunset, the landscape we admire from the hotel terraces is spectacular; the ochre colour of the Middle Atlas mountains (we are at over 1000 m of altitude) contrasts with the intense green of the palm groves and the red of the earth. The following morning we dedicate to visiting the village of Ait Ben Haddou; since 1987 this place has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which provides the funds for the maintenance and reconstruction of the various buildings, subject to rapid wear and decay as they are built of mud and straw.

The houses are perched on the hill, many are half-destroyed, others in better condition house small shops of local crafts. This place is particularly famous because it was the film set of films such as "The Jewel of the Nile", "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Gladiator". We arrive at the foot of the hill just after a storm, the sky behind the buildings is still leaden and this makes the ochre and yellow colours of the houses stand out even more. We leave this magical place and head towards another important stop of our journey, Marrakech, where we arrive in the evening, the ideal moment for a visit to the symbolic place of this city, Jemaa el-Fna square, the largest square in the city, which comes alive in the evening becoming an open-air theatre with characters of every kind....

from the snake charmer to the classic water seller with his bell-studded hat, musicians, performers, women offering henna tattoos and much more. Then, looking to the other side of the square, you notice that the various food stalls are also arriving, set up every evening and offering every kind of street food. Great confusion, lots of people, both locals and tourists, certainly a very commercial place but one that still retains a certain charm. Around the square, bars and restaurants, some with panoramic terraces offering an evocative view from above, and then the maze of alleys that lead into the medina with shops of every kind. Marrakech was founded in the 11th century, when a Berber tribe that later gave rise to the Almoravid dynasty pitched its tents in this spot. The walls that still surround the medina today were subsequently built.

Unlike Fes, however, many of the private villas within the medina, in the 1990s, were turned into riads and the city experienced strong tourist development, losing some of its authenticity.

Our visit to the city begins with a walk in the gardens of the Koutoubia Mosque, whose 70-metre-high minaret stands out as a landmark in the old city. It was also a reference for the construction of the Giralda in Seville and for the Mosque of Rabat. We continue by visiting the Bahia Palace, a sumptuous building in the heart of the medina with rich decorations, inlaid ceilings and Carrara marble. Construction was begun around 1860 by the grand vizier Moussa and the palace was later occupied by a warlord who used it to entertain his French guests who, impressed by the beauty of its rooms, decided to drive out the owner and use the building as the seat of the protectorate. We plunge back into the medina, strolling without a precise destination, peeking inside the various doorways to discover splendid courtyards and elegant riads. The colours, the smells, the scents, the noises..

everything is very much alive and will remain firmly imprinted in our memories. In the evening a ride in a horse-drawn carriage will take us around the city walls and once again to Jemaa el-Fna, which as always overwhelms us with its great confusion.. and once again we think that it is really too touristy... but once again we give in to the temptation to stay a little longer... to enjoy the show! The following morning we visit an unusual place, a floral paradise of peace within a busy city like Marrakech, the Majorelle Gardens. This place, opened to the public in 1924, was bought by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé with the intention of preserving it and keeping it as it had been conceived by its original owner Jacques Majorelle.

Inside the garden there are over 300 species of plants from the 5 continents and a psychedelic-blue Art Deco building where the Berber Museum is housed, collecting objects of every kind in wood, metal, fabrics, jewellery and traditional Berber clothing.

The last destination of our journey awaits us along the Atlantic coast: Essaouira, a city on the ocean, perpetually swept by the wind with waves crashing violently against the fortifications; it is a very ancient city dating back to the times of the Phoenicians, while the walls were only built in the 18th century. Part of the city was designed by a French architect and for this reason various different styles mix within it, making it distinctive and charming. The white houses with light-blue windows and coloured doors recall, in some spots, certain Greek villages and contrast strongly with the ochre of the walls. On the doors of the houses, Arabic symbols mix with Jewish ones. It is pleasant to stroll in this place, especially now, in November, so out of season. In the narrow streets there are many small shops of local crafts, quite authentic too, with interesting items at low prices.

The commercial streets of the city, where tourist shops alternate with others frequented by the locals, the port, with the blue of the fishermen's boats contrasting with the yellow-ochre colour of the walls... other places where it's lovely to stroll without a destination. With these images our journey in Morocco comes to an end. The experience was absorbing; for ten days we immersed ourselves in a reality very different from our daily life but also different each time we changed location. Morocco is a vast country with a thousand faces and one certainly cannot delude oneself into thinking one knows it in just ten days. We can say we have brushed against it.. it was a very concentrated and intense taste. We certainly return home enriched, with the desire to come back in the future, to visit other places but also to deepen our knowledge of those already seen.

Trip taken in the month of November 2018.