RAMPARTS AND BIG GATE

You enter the city by Bab El Kasbah, the main door of the city. It is a majestic gate composed of large ochre adobe arches. You reach it by a long alley surrounded on both sides by ochre ramparts on which alternate guard towers, palm trees and bougainvilleas which bring freshness and harmony to the whole. On the right, you walk along the part of the Saadian walls that surround the kasbah; on the other side, the 18th century walls surround the rest of the city. In all, the walls are nearly 8 km long and are pierced by 5 monumental doors. You will believe yourself in the Middle Ages or in a movie set. You will easily imagine the Cherifian warriors bivouacked in the surrounding mountains to besiege the Roudani barricaded behind their walls. Take a tour of the ramparts by car, bicycle or carriage, if you are afraid of damaging your vehicle on the track, not always good. In places, combined with the gullies of the wadi that runs along the northern walls, pockets of abundant vegetation contrast extraordinarily well with the blinding reflections of the ramparts. But it is at sunset that the ramparts reveal all their beauty, when the dusk accentuates their ochre color. The interior of the walls in the evening can be a romantic stroll. The gate of the ramparts remains a step impossible to circumvent, but the rise of the steps ends only on a small terrace offering a point of view on the Kasbah.