Volubilis is an archeological site located near to Fes. This town was a rather important Roman settlement of Imperial age. Its name comes from the abundant presence in this place of morning glory plants (Ipomoea Violacea). "Volubilis" does in fact mean "twining", which is what morning glory plants do to grow. As a Roman archeological site this is all but impressive for an Italian touris, but it's nevertheless an interesting place, with a beautiful Arch, a nice view over the surrounding countryside and on the small town of Moulay Idriss, clinging onto the hill facing the ruins.

This really impressed me. This Mosque is noteworthy both under an artistic and an engineering viewpoint. Over 25.000 people can fit inside the Mosque, and almost 100.000 may stay in the attached external Square. Crafting the Mosque costed something around one billion Dollars at the time of building, and most of the money was collected as spontaneous donations of the Moroccan common people. More than 10.000 craftsmen worked for over 13 years to build and decorate this piece of artwork. Its 200 mt high Minaret is the talles in the world. This building may stand besides St. Peter in Rome or Notre Dame in Paris without blushing.

But what impressed me most is that it was built in the eighties, and opened to the public in 1993. I don't want to draw political or ideological conclusions out of this, anyone can think what they want. I don't think our western civilisation might build something comparable today. We can build the Channel Tunnel, the Messina Bridge, but not a similar Church. I don't say it's good or bad, as I don't think it's a simple judgement. Make a judgement about it yourself.

(*) The royal warehouses in Meknes is a huge building attached to the ancient royal stables. The 1755 earthquake which destroyed the stables' roof, did nothing to the stout structures of this building. Walls are so thick that the internal temperature is constant the year round, fixed at 13 Celsius. The warehouses were built to stock huge quantities (see the pics...!!!) of grains and other foodstuff (like olives), which could preserve for a long time thanks to the stable (and rather low, for that climate) temperature.

This kind of buildings is quite common throughout Northern Africa because Berber people needed to stock food from the good years to preserve it for the bad ones. Another example are the Medenine (Tunisia) warehouses, which you can see in a picture down here, which I took during a recent trip in Djerba. They were "family" warehouses, so they are considerably smaller than the royal Meknes ones. Nowadays, they are used as  souvenir shops...