After Asilah, we turn our backs on the Atlantic and push inland towards Meknes, Moulay Idriss, and a campsite called Zerhoum Belle Vue that sits between the two. What we don’t know yet is that getting there will be one of the most sobering drives of the entire trip.
The first stretch is easy enough — toll road, good tarmac, and no drama. Then we exit the motorway, and Morocco hits us hard. The region has been hammered by weeks of relentless rain, and the evidence is everywhere. Fields lie submerged under dirty brown water. Trees have been torn from the earth, roots and all. Roads have buckled, cracked or simply vanished into the mud.
Time and again, we’re forced to turn back at a barrier here or a washed-out bridge there. Near Ksar-el-Kebir, a city of tents has sprung up along the roadside: a makeshift shelter for families whose homes were swallowed by the flood.
Diversions and Road Closures
Inside the city, chaos reigns. People move with desperate urgency, hauling bags and blankets through streets thick with mud and rubbish. Buses push through wherever they can. Women and children are packed into motorised cargo trikes, clinging on as the vehicles lurch forward. We crawl through it all in our campervan – a vehicle that feels obscenely luxurious against this backdrop – squeezing through narrow streets jammed with cars, mopeds, three-wheelers and a seemingly endless stream of people.
Were we naïve? Should we have seen this coming? Maybe. Had we stuck to our original coastal route, we’d have missed all of this – the destruction, yes, but also this raw, unfiltered glimpse of Moroccan life in crisis.
South of the city, progress remains painfully slow. At Soukh-el-Arba du-Rharb, more road closures. At a roundabout, a man waves us down and shakes his head. He points out alternatives. We try them all. Everyone is blocked.
We arrive at Camping Zerhoum Belle Vue late, wrung out, our heads full of images that won’t easily fade. Moustafa is waiting. He welcomes us warmly, pours calm over the chaos of the day, and assures us he can organise a taxi to Meknes and Moulay Idriss. Out here, in the evening stillness of the campsite, the suffering we witnessed a few hours ago feels at once very real and impossibly distant. We are, we remind ourselves, extraordinarily lucky. Tomorrow: Meknes.
The ‘Versailles of Morocco’
The taxi drops us at the great square opposite the Bab Mansour, and we step straight into the chaos of the city. Meknes doesn’t ease you in gently – it simply absorbs you. This was the city Sultan Moulay Ismaïl chose for his imperial capital in the 17th century, and his ambition left its mark everywhere.
He wanted his own Versailles, and by all accounts, he came close. The boulevards here are wider than in Fez or Marrakech, the squares more generous, and the pace just a fraction slower. There’s a civic pride to Meknes – a quiet confidence – that sets it apart from Morocco’s more tourist-trampled royal cities.
Before we’ve taken twenty steps, a man materialises at our side, offering to be our guide. We thank him and decline. We’d rather get lost on our own terms – though, as it turns out, getting lost requires very little effort.
Moulay Ismaïl, the Architect of Meknes
No visit to Meknes makes sense without first paying your respects to the man who built it. The Mausoleum of Moulay Ismaïl – part of the Madrassa Bou Inania complex – is one of the few sacred sites in Morocco open to non-Muslim visitors, and it earns every superlative thrown at it.
Step through the entrance, and the city falls away. The courtyards are breathtaking: walls encrusted with intricate zellige tilework, ceilings of carved cedarwood, and stucco arabesques so fine they seem to defy the hardness of the material. The silence is total. It’s a place that demands you slow down and look – really look – at the craft that surrounds you. And then, inevitably, you think of the poverty and upheaval you drove through to get here, and the contrast lands like a quiet punch.
El Hedim, the Heart of the City
Back outside, Place el Hedim pulses with life. This is where Meknes breathes – a vast open square that acts as a hinge between the ancient medina and the imperial city, part market, part theatre, part village square.
By day, it belongs to the traders and the locals on their daily rounds. By late afternoon, it reinvents itself entirely. A snake charmer works in one corner. Nearby, a man coaxes tricks from a small monkey while a boy circles the square on a pony, searching hopefully for customers. Then a young woman sets up her henna station, and the square settles into its evening rhythm. Don’t just pass through; find a terrace, order something cold, and watch.
The Scents of the Souk
Behind the square, the souk swallows you whole. This is the Morocco of the imagination: narrow covered alleyways where the light filters in at strange angles, stallholders calling out in Arabic and French, donkeys plodding through gaps in the crowd while you press yourself against the wall to let them pass.
The sensory overload is magnificent. Pyramids of olives from the Saïss plain — green, black, marinated, stuffed. Bundles of dried herbs releasing clouds of fragrance when you brush past. Whole carcasses hanging outside the halal butcher. Tables piled high with pastries glistening with honey. We let the crowd carry us, give ourselves over to the flow, and simply take it all in.
What surprises us most is that nobody hassles us. The traders glance up, assess, and return to their business. It feels respectful — almost refreshing. After half an hour, we surfaced, dazed and ready for coffee. The owner of a small terrace café understands immediately when we mime our order — a double espresso and a dash of milk — and returns a few minutes later with something that in Spain would go by the name of ‘cortado’. It is exactly what we need.
Carpet ‘for a Good Price’
Revived, we drift through the shopping streets beyond the souk. The pace is gentler here, the streets wider, but the density of small shops is staggering. Leather goods, ceramics, argan oil, jewellery, and djellabas. You find yourself wondering how the economics of it all can work.
When we stop to admire a carpet – genuinely beautiful, deep reds and geometric patterns – the salesman is on us in seconds. A very good price. Ship it to Spain? Pas de problème. We thank him sincerely and move on. He takes it well, and we end up chatting for ten minutes – cycling cheerfully through French, Spanish, German, English and Dutch. “Bien sûr, he grins. “I’m a real polyglot.”
Our First Tajine
Before heading back, we let ourselves be talked into lunch. A tajine. We hesitate – food safety anxiety is real when you’re travelling – but the restaurant owner is having none of it. Everything is cooked at such temperatures, he explains with absolute conviction, that nothing survives. He’s right. The lamb falls apart at the touch of a fork. The preserved lemon cuts through the richness. It is, without question, the best thing we’ve eaten in days.
One last look at the square. The Bab Mansour gate looms at the far end, its mosaic facade catching the afternoon light. Then we find our taxi and head back to the campsite, the day replaying itself on the drive.
The ferry crossing, the flooded roads, the chaos of those displaced communities, and now this: a city that gave us beauty, history and an accidental lesson in Moroccan hospitality. And we’re barely a week into the journey.
Practical Tips for Your Visit
- Getting There. Meknes is an easy train ride from Fez (30–45 minutes) or Rabat – making it a very doable day trip if you’re based in either city.
- Best Time to Visit. Spring and autumn are the sweet spots. Summer turns the city furnace hot by midday; winter evenings can be sharply cold. Come in April or October, and you’ll have it close to perfect.
- Camping. Staying at Camping Zerhoum Belle Vue? Moustafa can arrange a return taxi to Meknes for a fixed 200 dirhams. Agree on the price before you get in – and relax, it’s genuinely fixed.
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