Morocco: Volubilis

This archeological site warranted its own blog.  It was vast and amazing.  And it's another UNESCO World Heritage site!  If you are one of those bucket-list types and your bucket list includes UNESCO sites, Morocco is a good place to check an over-flowing handful off your list.

Anyhoo, Volubilis...  Established around the 3rd century BC by Carthaginian traders, the 40-hectare site may have once housed 20000 people and was surrounded by wheat fields planted by the Romans.  The city was reclaimed and abandoned around 280 AD when neighbouring Berber tribes decided to reassert themselves (per Lonely Planet).  Also according to Lonely Planet, the marble of this site was plundered by Moulay Idriss (who had lived here) to build his palaces in Meknes around the 8th century and an earthquake in 1755 took out the rest of the buildings.  

What's left are the ruins you see here!  Remi and I wandered this site for 2 1/2 hrs or so.  The light was perfect, the sky blue and there was lots to see!  We have a gazillion photos of the site, this is a mere sampling.

A (slightly) photoshopped panoramic of the site from the road.

 Olive trees line the some of the paths around the site.

Remi only had to photoshop two people out!  Remarkably, despite tour buses arriving every three or four seconds, we were able to view the site mostly alone and most of our pictures are tourist-free!

 Prepare yourself for rocks, columns, rocks, columns and a stork's nest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (here's the nest)

 

Now get ready for tilework!  It was amazing and while a lot of it has likely been restored, the details were clearly amazing back in the day too.  Areas were roped off to prevent mindless tourists from wandering over the mosaics.

 

 

 

 Fountains and floors...  It would have been very grand in its time! (in fact, still very grand today)

  Ooh la la...

A couple of parting shots...

 

A couple more photoshop edits:

 

Stay tuned for Marrakech!

Love S & R