Morocco: The Imperial Cities

Off the furthest corner of the Djemaa el-Fna, down an umpromising, vaguely hostile looking alleyway, the Medina Azahara is not the easiest place to find. So, after a night in an airport and half an hour getting lost with a backpack, I wasn't pre-disposed to like the place. But like it I did.

After the price the best thing about the Azahara is the number of common spaces. The shaded courtyard, water trickling from the fountain and the muffled slap of slippers on stone, is a great place to breakfast: crepes and baguettes with butter and jam, mint tea and glasses of juice. There are sofas and games on the first floor landing and a rooftop terrace, partly covered, with views over the Djemaa el-Fna and the High Atlas snowcaps.

The room was one long corridor with a square at either end, kept cool by wooden shutters and wall-mounted air conditioning. At one end, separated by a hanging curtain, was the bedroom: metal handicrafts, a springy double bed and a metal safe doubling as a lampstand. Opposite, and twice the size, the bathroom had a sunken square bath and shower, an open fronted wardrobe, sink, cracked round mirror and a domed ceiling. Between the two is a living space decorated in mud-shades, two sofas (brown and yellow), a gas heater and metal torches hooked to the wall. Most other places, the decor would qualify for a three-star rating. At least.

Slight reservations: you'll need all of your school-learnt French as none of the staff (that I met, anyway) spoke English and, depsite all the shared space, it's a much better place to chill-out than to meet people. Still, at the price (under 20 euros per person per night), this is definitely one of the city's better bargains.

My first experience of the Hotel Batha was not a particularly promising one. Arriving by taxi, weighed down by bags and the eight hour journey from Marrakech, we were greeted by a tall, slightly balding and eminently supercillious clerk. He stood upright, clucking his tongue loudly while looking up at the computer screen and back down at my folded reservation. There was a pause while he moved his feet from side to side; he made a deiberate show of checking one last time. Finally, with a shake of his head, he gave us the news. "There is no trace of your booking and today we are full, miseurs. You must come back in two days."

Things improved when we finally did get inside, just not as much as expected. My room was high but stuffy with a smell of the toilet, aspiring to but not achieving the kind of old world grandeur hinted at in the courtyard outside. There are all the usual touches, sure - little packets of soap, a TV affixed to the wall, pea-green bathroom with bidet (handy for the separate toilet, which was two stairs down and next door on the left), and a bed so tightly wound with blankets it takes two minutes just to sit upright in the morning. In short, completely standard. No more, no less.

The courtyard is wonderful. Fountains and diagonal tiles, plastic seating open to the sky, a bar (open to non-residents) and swimming pool (could have done with a clean) in one corner. But the place is just too uptight: the bar often deserted, the breakfast (croissants, croissants and hunks of bread washed down with super sweet orange juice and a choice of tea or coffee) uninspiring, and the other guests? Let's just say it's a great place to meet people just so long as the people you want to meet are, in the main, bearded, French, middle-aged and unfriendly.

Overall, a cheaper version of the Holiday Inn. A quiet place that's not too basic, fairly central, and maintains a few frills. For more memorable experiences, try elsewhere.

It's raining when we arrive at Volubilis and the guides at the gate are not having a good day. "You have only an hour? It's impossible to see everything inside without a guide. Come, I show you." I disagree, rightly as it turned out, and head out on my own. With nice weather and time on your hands, you could spend all day at Volubilis, picking your way from ruin to ruin. But for the layman, in the rain, an hour, a bit of walking, and a half-decent map in a guidebook is enough to take in most of what there is.

What makes Volubilis special is not the extent of the ruins (although the site spreads over 40 hectares in total the main area is less than a kilometre one way and five hundred metres the other) but rather the beauty of their location: triumphal arches stuck in mud and grass, broken staircases and olive trees, mosaics showing back-to-front horse riders and chariots pulled by panthers, columns used as storks' nests. Across the valley, Moulay Idriss sticks to the hill like an upside down teardrop.

Near the entrance, the heavy mud is as sticky as clay and doubles the weight of my shoes within the first twenty metres. While the tour groups flit from mosaic to mosaic in the buildings off the Decumanus Maximus, we poke around broken hypocausts and ancient olive presses on the other side of the site. Despite Moulay Ismail's plundering of the town to provide building materials for his palaces in Meknes, most of the structures remain surprisingly well preserved.

I liked Volubilis. A lot.

The ruins are a 45-minute walk or a short grand taxi ride from Moulay Idriss. If you're travelling by taxi from Meknes, it's far cheaper to pay for a seat to Moulay Idriss (10 dh) first and then negotiate a price to Volubilis from there (around 50-60 dh if you want the driver to wait for an hour before taking you back).

The souks of Marrakech: motorbike oil and horse dung, metal and leather, fake football shirts and expensively-priced cheap pottery, silver kettles and donkey-drawn carts. The main paths are chaotic but unthreatening. Only where the tourists end do the real touts begin. "The road ahead is closed. Only way is right. I show you. No money."

We walk around for hours. First one way, then the next, but always, in the end, back to where we started. We round a corner and stumble over an old man, bent double over a piece of paper (the hook). "Do you speak English? Can you translate this word? Come in, sit down." Inside there were two padded benched arranged in an L, a single wooden stool, glass jars packed tight on a shelf, and a dog-eared book of testimonials from English-speaking friends: "This one, she's a Maths teacher from Brighton - you know Brighton? I lived there before. Too fat. She should come and live in Morocco. We like big women here. Tell me, do you sweat more than you urinate?"

I lay on the bench, my face an inch or two from the wall. "You're very flexible," he said, twisting my leg towards the ceiling. "See how flexible? And excellent blood circulation too. In a few days you'll feel a great warmth." Fairly likely, I thought, as the temperature outside was pushing thirty degrees.

When it was over I get a torn piece of paper with a number scribbled on one end. I laugh, we haggle, he gets offended and quotes the price he could charge in England. Eventually we settle on a quarter, still more than the whole thing was worth.

The curtain opens with a snap to let us out. Unwittingly, the next customers approach.

We'd been squeezed into the taxi for half an hour, four in the back, two up front with the driver, when we reached Sefrou. My legs ached. It was hot. The mountains seemed much smaller closer-up.

Through the Bab el-Maqam we crossed the dried-out stream and started through the sleepy streets of the Medina. The guide saw us the moment we turned the corner. In the narrow alley all he had to do was wait: there was no escape except for the exit.

"I have wife and children. My only capital is my voice and my feet. Up here, panoramic view," he said, mixing English and French. The flat roof was full of washing; a dog sat in one corner, tied to the chimney. Across the alley a woman was squeezing soap out of a t-shirt in the shade of a satellite dish.

"Over here many Jews. Before, not now. Come, I show you. Where you from? Newcastle? Me, I like Liverpool."

We walked around for twenty minutes. There was a carpenters' craftshop, a hole in the wall mending shoes, abandoned Jewish buildings with Stars of David adorning the walls. People were friendlier than in Fes, and immeasurably more laid-back. We stopped to watch a game of football; a woman dodged out of a doorway and fixed a strand of thread to my camera bag. "Souvenir of Sefrou, " she said. I waited for the outstretched hand but it never came. The guide shook his head, forlornly, "Nowadays, no tourists."

Sometimes that's a good thing.