Bab Mansour

I was in the ancient city of Meknès to see and experience their medina. Meknès is actually part of the UNESCO World Heritage site until the title Historic City of Meknès. It is similar to nearby Fès in a lot of ways except the number of visitors. It is remarkably sleepy here and it is a huge contrast to busy Fès. This is not to say that there is nothing to see here in the historic city. Fortunately, the guy at the riad where I was staying already pointed out the places where I need to visit so it was just a matter of finding them. Not an easy matter since Meknès was actually larger than I thought.

One of the first places I headed off to was the main city gate of Meknès. Meknès is a royal city and it is normal that the city has gates to protect the city. I was way inside the medina so I needed to make my way out of the medina to get to the main gate of Meknès. Meknès is known for its collection of impressive gates and the most famous one of them is Bab Mansour. Immediately, you can see the imposing size of the gate. The design of the gate is decidedly Islamic and it is not unlike a mosque when you look at it. It fact, the gate is large enough that there is a museum inside it. I would like to be here at the gate when the sun sets. I’m getting terrible lighting conditions with the sun directly behind the gate.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/BabMansour.kmz} zoom=19]