Meknes
Villes impériales, villages, paysages et savoir-faire à découvrir autour de Fès.
Founded in 757 by part of the Arab-Berber Meknassa tribe, originally from Tunisia, Meknes, like the three other imperial cities of the Kingdom of Morocco, is the living expression of the builder sultans who transformed it through their conquests, but above all according to their whims.
An exceptional imperial city
The most famous of them is none other than the founder of the Alaouite dynasty, Sultan Moulay Ismaïl (1672-1727), a contemporary of Louis XIV with whom he corresponded on several occasions to negotiate the ransom of Christian captives held in his Cara prison, an underground silo located beneath the medina of Meknes. It was indeed through the resale of these foreign sailors that the sultan drew a good part of his income throughout his 55-year reign, which he mainly used to organize and pacify Morocco, but above all to pass on to us a heritage that echoes our dreams of the Arabian Nights.
For Meknes was designed by Moulay Ismaïl to be one of the most majestic imperial cities of Morocco. Surrounded by high walls stretching for about forty kilometers and pierced by monumental gates, it boasts sumptuous monuments, mainly religious buildings, all of which offer a skillful blend of styles, drawing their inspiration from Hispano-Moorish architecture. Indeed, in Meknes, the city of a hundred minarets, the aesthetic of stylization, which gives pride of place to calligraphy, transcends aniconism, so dear to Islamic culture, but also the mathematical and geometric rigor that lies at the heart of its creations.
A medina and a royal palace listed as UNESCO World Heritage
Its finest jewels are undoubtedly its medina and the remains of the sultan’s royal palace, which earned it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list. But you will also delight in discovering the mausoleum of Moulay Ismaïl, the great mosque founded by the Almoravids in the 11th century, the Dar Jamaï museum, the Bou Filalia Medersa, the Rif pottery museum, Koubat Al Khayatine – the hall of ambassadors where Sultan Moulay Ismaïl received foreign ambassadors and emissaries –, the great Agdal basin built by Moulay Ismaïl to irrigate the gardens of Meknes and serving as a water reserve for the medina…
Nicknamed « The Versailles of Morocco » or « The Little Paris » during the French Protectorate, Meknes is a must-visit destination for all history lovers…