Behind Bab Berrima, a gate flanked by massive towers overlooking the Place les Ferblantiers, a passageway between high walls leads to the entrance of the Dar el Badi, the Palace of the Incomparable. Work on this huge palace, built to commemorate Ahmed el Mansour’s victory over the Portuguese at the Battle of the Three Kings, was begun in 1578 and continued for the next 25 years. It was financed by the war indemnity paid by the Portuguese, by gold brought back from Guinea, and by sugar produced in the Sous region. Large numbers of European craftsmen were employed to work on the project, and the most luxurious materials were imported from black Africa, Italy, France, Spain, and India. The Carrara marble used in the palace, so the story goes, was purchased for its weight in sugar. This sumptuous palace was designed for the celebration of festivals on a grand scale and had a total of 360 rooms arranged around a huge inner courtyard with pools and decorative flowerbeds. Every year at the beginning of June, a national folk festival is held in the ruins that are all that remain of its former splendour. At the end of the 17th century, Moulay Ismail tore out the marble, onyx, gold, ivory, and exotic wood from the Dar el Badi and used them to build his palaces in Meknès. This demolition process took 10 years to complete.
Located not far from the El Badi Palace is the beautiful and opulent Dar La Bahia. In the late 19th century, Ba Ahmed, grand vizier to the sultans Moulay Hassan and Moulay Abd el Aziz, ordered this magnificent palace to be built. The palace, standing in a 2-acre garden, is a haphazard arrangement of secret luxury apartments opening on to inner courtyards. For 7 years around a thousand craftsmen from the Fez region worked on the palace, using the same motifs and materials inside as the architects had used on the outside of the building. Thus the carved wood, plaster, and stucco of the facade are continued in the interior decoration. The master of works, seriously hampered by his weight and small stature, had the palace built on one level. The only sections of the Dar el Bahia open to the public are the apartments of the sultan’s favourite concubine, the council chamber, with its tiled walls and illuminated cedar wood ceiling, the great central courtyard, paved with marble and decorated with zellige, and fountains. The courtyards, planted with flowers, were reserved for the sultan’s five wives and 24 concubines. During the French protectorate, the palace was the residence of General Lyautey, France’s first resident general.