Morocco Day 2: Rabat World Heritage

​Today was our free day to explore Rabat.  We decided to go to the ancient Chellah Castle in the old district.  

We took an Uber to the site, which included some negotiation on the price and was kind of fun. (Our pre-trip info indicated that Moroccans liked to bargain). Inside the gate, we walked thru a lovely park to get to the ruins of the Roman city which was surrounded by amazing high walls.  

We enjoyed watching a short film recreating how the Islamic Mederesa (school) looked, which helped us to imagine the area in the 1300.  Then we went through Roman and Islamic baths, and  another beautiful garden.

Water conduit system that is used to keep plants green. 

Finally we got to the Mausoleum and the tiled area that was the mederesa, where a teacher was sitting on the floor telling her students about their history. All the while we watched White Storks fly around - there were many stork nests in trees and on top of the towers, and a huge one on  the top of the tallest tower of the mederesa.  

After seeing the whole site, we stopped at the cafe for a cold drink and some ice cream - yum.  Then we caught a taxi to the Museum of History and Civilization, where we saw a lot of the artifacts from Volubulis and other Roman excavations in Morocco. Although most of the artifacts were from Roman times, they had some Neolithic artifacts that dated from 310,000 years ago.

We were hot and tired after the museum, so we returned to the hotel and spent the afternoon snacking and resting. There was some delicious oregano tea in the room that went well with our Norwegian crackers. 

In the evening we had our welcome dinner with the OAT group.  It was fun meeting everyone over a delicious Moroccan dinner. 

Ruth with the night guard in the hotel lobby.  

As noted yesterday, this 13 room hotel is beautifully decorated with Moroccan artifacts and wonderful paintings in both the public spaces and the bedrooms. We found out tonight that it is owned by a Moroccan woman professor who uses it as a guesthouse entertain important visitors and it is sometimes available to small groups like ours.