Vive Le Maroc!!

I don't speak French. Running the risk of massive grammatical errors and thus becoming the butt of jokes for all French speaking and knowing friends, I will give this post a French title. Going by the example above, I can give anyone a run for their money with run-on sentences! But back to the topic of this post.
As I might have mentioned in an earlier post, this is my flirty fortieth birthday. As a special gift, my dear husband bought us all a trip to Morocco. As a kid, he lived there for seven years (oh Brad Pitt think how much better a movie that could have been!) and I have always been mesmerized by the glamorous and exciting stories of Marrakesh (which is written Marrakech is French) and Casablanca.
I was pinching myself as we got off the plan in Casablanca. I am here!! Truly really in Morocco. It was blindingly sunny, mildly chilly and there were palm trees everywhere. Also, everyone is speaking Arabic and/ or French. Not a bit of English to be heard in any corner.
There are too many things to talk about. So in this first post, I will talk about Volubilis. Between the cities of Rabat and Fes, tucked away near the town of Moulay Idris in Northern Morocco, are the Roman ruins of Volubilis. I knew the French had colonized north Africa, and also the Dutch and the English, but I had no idea the Romans got there first. In hindsight, why not? It's right next to Spain, and the Roman generals weren't exactly stay-at-home types anyway.
The ruins look much like those in Rome, with the stone remains of beautifully planned villas. Wide and straight streets, under which were built in sewage drains. Roads ran North and South. There was a main road the connected the entrance gate to the city with the Arc d'Triomph like structure at the other end. One side of the street were for villas of aristocrats, the other for commoners. Much like our right side of the tracks versus the undesirables. There were meticulously planned courtyards with fountains, baths and forums (open public meeting spaces) that would have pleased a Caesar or a Claudius back in the day.
What struck me at Volubilis are the amazing two thousand years old mosaic floors! Each villa we passed through could boast at least one room where the mosaic floor still depicted Greek themes like Ariadne by the beach, or the Labors of Hercules or Diana hunting. The unexpected beauty of this ancient Roman colony left me speechless. The symmetrical lines of the columns, graceful arches and the detailed attention given to planning this remote outpost left me in awe of Roman civil engineering. Here are a few pictures before we enter the maze of a Medina at Fes.