Our morning at Volubilis
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007We went to see the Roman ruins at Volubilis about a week ago, but I haven’t had a chance to write about it until now (and the story is much better with photos). The day before we went was an awful day in Meknes. It was bitterly cold and it rained for most of the afternoon and evening, which was pretty depressing. The forecast for the next day was ‘partly sunny’, which at least gave me some hope.
We got to the Volubilis, which is the most famous set of Roman ruins in Morocco but not a particularly well known city empire-wide, just after it opened, at 8:15am. Half an hour earlier it had been quite clear in all directions but by this time, though the sun was still shining, there were insanely dark storm clouds to the west. This created an incredible light for the next 15 minutes, with the ruins bathed in sunshine with the backdrop very, very dark, accounting for some of the best photos of the trip. Later all the clouds disappeared and we had blue skies, so in some cases I have two photos of the same thing with completely different backgrounds (like here and here). For the first hour in these changing conditions, we were the only people at the site.
Anyway, the ruins themselves were really quite impressive. There are many quality mosaics in situ, and a few imposing structures including a triumphal arch built during the reign of the emperor Caracalla in AD 217. The arched basilica, with several columns including one topped by the (apparently) obligatory stork’s nest, was also quite impressive. It’s rare that you get to see Roman mosaics and quality ruins at the same place – usually it’s one or the other. So while Volubilis was no Ba’albeck or Palmyra, it was about as good as Ephesus, if not better.
Nick