Sunday, March 16, 2008

Meknes and Rabat

On my second day in Meknes I explored the medina. I did get hassled my a couple of people and more so at the end of the day, including one "guide" who wanted a 50 dirham tip for showing me around a two room "museum" that was a carpet shop.

I took a long walk from the southern end of the medina to the imperial city, and then returned to the medina and walked to its northernmost point from where I had a gorgeous view of the hills north of the city. Then I walked all the way back to the square, which, as the Rough Guide points out, is a bit like a small Djemma al Fna. The two major sites of interest that I saw today were the Bou Inania medersa of Meknes and the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail.

I was worried about catching the train to Rabat on time, but I was one time and the train was delayed so everything worked out fine.

I was able to post a few pictures to flickr but then something happened to the memory card reader on the pc.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice to hear about your travels. I have a trip to Morocco coming up in a month. How long would you say the ride was from Meknes to Rabat? Was it very expensive? Was it very expensive? Is there anything you would do different if you could do it again?

5:39 PM  
Blogger Chris said...

I think the journey to Rabat was about two hours by train. You can go to the ONCF website to look at train schedules. It was very cheap. If you're planning to do a lot of traveling by train, then get a Carte Fidelite, which gives you 50% discounts. It's available during regular business hours Monday through Friday at most train stations. (You'll need to submit a passport photo and a xerox of the first page in your passport.)

If I could do it again, one thing I would do is visit the Sale medersa earlier in the day. (It closed early the day I went.)

12:00 AM  
Anonymous Send flowers online said...

The Moroccan train network consists of a few lines serving the routes between the main cities with fairly modern, clean trains. Trains leave Rabat Ville station on Ave Mohammad V about every two hours for Fes, a journey of about 3 1/2 hours. We caught the 9.17 train. Booking is advisable the day before. The train station is right in the centre of the Ville Nouvelle and makes the train more convenient a point to leave Rabat if you're going onto a bigger town or city.
Buy flowers online

6:09 AM  

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