The Tower Hassan :The mosque is built at the end of the XII-th century by the sultan Yaqoub el Mansour ( 1184-1199 ). It wanted to build the biggest mosque, but this project is interrupted by its death in 1199 and the mosque remains unfinished and will be ravaged by the earthquake of 1755. The vestiges of the mosque: the minaret, some columns and sections of wall have fine figure and let guess the dimension of the initial monument. The minaret, quadrangular, raised in the middle of the fragments of four hundred columns, raises itself in more of 44m in height. The walls of half a metre in thickness, by forming a rising sweet sloping banister in vine around six superimposed central details. The decoration is sober and varied: wide and simple interlacings. .

Right by the tower Hassan, but in centuries of distance, here is the mausoleum Mohamed V the construction of which began in 1962. This sovereign led Morocco to the independence and Morocco raised him a monument deserving of its gratitude. Not less than 400 artisans carried out this luxurious work. Outside, a magnificent pavilion of white marble was crowned with green tiles. Inside, a room magnificently decorated with, in the centre, the gravestone it onyx white resting on a granite block as polite as a mirror (the visit of the mausoleum Mohamed V is opened to all). .

Of the avenue Hassan II in the kasbah of Oudaïas - The avenue Hassan II goes along the " wall of the Andalusians ", raised in 17-th s, which separates the medina of the new city. Take, to the right of the market hall, the avenue Mohammed V who penetrates into the medina to turn immediately to the right. .

Street Souika - main Artery of the medina, lined with Moorish coffees and with shops of food, it is always very full of life. it leads to the Big Mosque the minaret of which one perceives at the bottom to the right of the street: this sanctuary was reconstructed at the end of 19-th s A part of the street is covered with reeds: it is the souk are Sebat where dominate traders of slippers and leather workers. Turn to the left.

Kasbah of the Oudaïas - This citadel is so called because a contingent of the tribe of Oudaïas was installed there by the sultans alaouites to hold it garrison and watch the city. But the creation goes back up in 10-th s Following the carved wall, rise jusqu ' to the monumental main entrance. Porte des Oudaïas - Built in the end of 12-th s by Yacoub el-Mansour on most the Mecca of Rabat, it is a beautiful example of the skill of the almohades architects to make of a defensive work one authentic object of art. Massive but of harmonious proportions, completely cut in a beautiful red stone, it is a real fortress containing a row of 3 rooms being able to accommodate a small garrison. The entrance is protected by sturdy striking two whose only decoration is made by the alternation of sat thick and thin some stone. Among them open two on horseback exceeded and broken iron concentric bows; The biggest is decorated with sharp lobes surrounded with deep relief shaped interlacings. In écoinçons bloom big palmettes two. A registration in characters coufiques court along the blindfold and falls again on both sides bows. A wide frieze it arcatures blind crowns the whole, prolonged by two consoles in projection which support small columns. The door is in chicane to make more difficult the assaults. Inside, temporary exhibitions are organized in the gallery Bab el Kebir. Turn to the right to penetrate into the kasbah. By glancing behind one will appreciate the other face of the door. Without reaching the majesty of the first, she does not miss character. The absence of striking, useless of the internal side, gives more space and freedom to the sculptured decoration.
.

Platform of the semaphore - Continuing straight ahead in front of one, one borrows the street Jamaa which crosses the kasbah. Please , notice, to the left, the oldest mosque of Rabat; based towards 1150 by Almohades, it was reconstructed in 18-th s Crossing a door one reaches the platform of the semaphore; beautiful sight on the mouth of Bou Regreg and on the big Moslem cemetery which spreads out on the hillside of the hill between the medina and the sea. On the place, one perceives a clothing workshop carpet. Cross the door of Oudaïas and come down again towards the place Souk-el-Ghezel. To the left, between 2 old artillery, a door opens in the wall on a path which leads to the museum.

Museum of Oudaïas - One penetrates at first into a building, in central yard, dominated by a massive tower of four floors. Built in the end of 17-th s under Moulay's lsmaïl administration, this palace was doubtless a pied-à-terre for the sultan or the place of residence of the caid of the kasbah, before being converted in médersa. The vast patio is decorated with a bowl of white marble it is encircled with sober columns, coupled in angles, which support bows exceeded by the gallery. In the former oratory to the right of the entrance one admires a collection of carpet of dif férentes regions of Morocco as well as furniture. On both sides of the yard, in heightened loggias, is exposed a beautiful polychromatic blue and ceramic ceramic collection of ceramic of Fes. In a cubbyhole of angle, embroidery of Fes, Salted, Meknès. In a big room, one reconstituted the inside of a rich house divans covered with brockets (Fes. 19-th s) Ceremonial beds in the heavy embroidered draperies, the former carpets of Rabat. One big glazed bay stocked with very beautiful wrought irons offers a pleasant perspective of the garden of Oudaïas. In the lounge in front of the big room, former jewels of collection, golden and one silver. In a building leaned in the wall Moulay Rachid, a room shelters instruments of city(city-dweller) and rural traditional music. Another quite close building gathers in a big room an interesting collection dedicated to the Berber life. One will see there weapons, luxurious harnesses, jewels of the South, as well as the dressed up models representing all the Moroccan regions.

The garden of Oudaïas is one of the examples of riad or closed garden which one often meets in Morocco. Always closed by high walls (here, in Oudaïas, a carved wall, flanked by turrets, which surrounds the garden and separates it from the outside world), the riad, the composition of which joins in a more or less regular rectangle is often endowed, when it is not a part integral of a house of buildings which face each other in two of the extremities. These rooms widely opened with galleries or these pavilions one extension are then connected by several paved, more or less wide rectilinear paths, cutting itself in right angle, bowls or jets of water marking their meeting places. It establishes however mostly the heart of rich houses or palace all around of which these last ones articulate, endowing of loggias, iron balustrades forged or of fine wooden galleries, and a kiosk in the dome often painted by arabesques. It offers to the glance a profusion of flowers and shrubs - banana trees, lemon trees, daturas, oleanders, orange trees distributed without visible plan in squares which sprays séguias, and sometimes mixing their branches with the dark masses of cypress which frame a central fountain. But the particular charm of this type of garden - that one finds notably in Fes, in Dar Batha's palace, in Meknès in the palace Jamaï, or in Marrakesh, where it decorates the beautiful houses of Dar Si Saïd and the palace of Bahia - it is that it participates in the architectural prescription of the building for which it was conceived, and gets to the guest a strong impression of peace and coolness .

Of the kasbah of Oudaïas in the avenue Hassan II - The boulevard Al-Alou goes along the Moslem cemetery of the kasbah. Immediately after a small mosque forming the angle, please , turn to the left in the street Sidi Fatah. Among the numerous sanctuaries which line this one, the mosquée Moulay el Mekki presents an elegant octagonal minaret decorated with bows with stalactites over windows and beautiful door surmounted by a lean-to of wood painted. The street Sidi-Fatah goes along, in the angle of the street Souika, the mosque Moulay Sliman ( 1812 ) and returns, by Bab al Bouiba, to the avenue Hassan II.

Bab er-Rouah Set in the almohade wall, this door - its name means " door of Winds " because it is whipped by the maritime winds - is contemporary of that of Oudaïas. It is a defensive work in chicane. Enormous striking two give some harshness to the stony facade the sculpture of which offers nevertheless pleasant one composition: two big scalloped bows draw the chief lines; in every écoinçon a palmette big blooms in a vegetation of interlacing; an ancient quotation takes place on the blindfold, whereas two small columns of angle add a note of whim to the monument. The inside contains several rooms the first of which two in opened sky is covered with a remarkable dome on trunks, in radiant grooves. The gallery Bab Rouah installed in these rooms presents regularly exhibitions of contemporary Moroccan artists. Mohamed Chebaa, Hassan Glaoui, Labied Miloud, Mohamed Melehi et Farid Belkahia,among others, exposed it their works repeatedly. It is here that was held in 1960 the first collective exhibition of Moroccan painters, announcing the profusion of the pictorial creation of these last years. Resuming the car, please , cross the surrounding wall to the left of Bab er-Rouah. Please , follow the avenue Moulay-Hassan and, 200 m farther, cross, to the right, the door which gives access to the méchouar, the vast enclosure where raises itself the palace of king. Please , by-pass the méchouar.

Palace of King - On the right-hand side opens the main entrance of the palace, the monumental main entrance of yellow stone in the tiled roof varnished. Current Dar el Makhzen, built in 1864, on the place of a palace of the end of 18-th s, was considerably enlarged until these last years. In the surrounding wall of the palace divide up classes and Andalusian patios all around of which are the royal Cabinet, the ministry of the Royal house and the Protocol and the services of the Prime Minister. To cross the paved esplanade. To the left rises the mosque Ahl Fas where king sometimes goes to big procession. Friday from 12 h30 to 13 hours. Leave the méchouar by a door after which one turns to the right in the avenue Yacoub-el-Mansour. Cross Bab Zaers and follow the small road (leaving, very discreetly , the roundabout) which goes to Chellah's surrounding wall.

Chellah - In city gates, Chellah slumbers in an almost rural isolation. " The most romantic site of Morocco " as it was said actually, a strong impression(printing) of mystery and flat solitude on its bulwarks, the ruins and the graves. Ancient Roman city for a long time was left, Chellah knew a new fate when, in 13-th s, the mérinides sovereigns chose this place as their last rest. The reddish wall of pisé, partially strengthened by stone and by brick, contains towers fitted out in rooms of shot. She was finished in 1339 by the sultan Abou el Hassan to protect the graves of her ancestors and Chellah's pious foundations.

The door - A beautiful stone door of size, elegant success of the art mérinide, gives access to the town of the deaths. The facade, richly sculptured, is flanked by two hexagonal towers; the passage in the plan squared by the bastions which crown them is made harmoniously by corbelled constructions stocked with stalactites. Cross the door cubit. A path cut by stairs goes down towards a silent valley where grow freely reeds and fig trees of Inhumanity, micocouliers, olive trees and banana trees; a moving charm gets free of the dead town where a strong vegetation invades ruins populated with storks, where different cults succeeded one another through ages, where are lying about many legends of fabulous past. Does not one tell that Chellah was formerly a magnificent town where the gold and the silver were in such abundance as one went as far as making the chains of it to hold in leash asses and dogs? And what today geniuses keep still treasures buried in the ground ?

The churchyard - to go at first to the right, towards the koubbas which one perceives in side of hillside. At feet of the last one (the saint whom one worships is there maybe of pre-Islamic time) extends a stony pond which served as fountain in the ablutions for mérinides sanctuaries. The supernatural source which feeds him makes the object of a cult the origin of which goes doubtless back up to age-old times. It contains sacred eels and tortoises; one says as well that in the heart of the source a fabulous fish adorned with golden rings lives. Returning on the steps. Cross the surrounding wall which closes the royal churchyard. One crosses at first a small mosque in ruin in three spans (to the left a door shows still partially a cover of varnished ceramic). At the bottom to the right, a passage, near a minaret, gives access to the room funeral of Abou el Hassan. At feet of a wall of pink stone finely chiselled, one can see the grave of the sultan, died in 1351, and last sovereign mérinide buried here (its successors were interred in Fes.). Close, the another grave: that of its wife. A Christian was converted to the Islam, the epitaph of which learns us that she answered the charming name of " Morning sun " (Chems ed Douha). Known also under the name of Lalla Chellah, the "Lady de Chellah" been the object of a real cult, and reigns over all the enclosure. Go to the minaret which dominates the churchyard. One reaches a yard. Paved by mosaic around an oblong pond bowls it is framed by galleries on which open small cells. The building, ruined enough, is a zaouïa; in this house of prayers, readers of the Koran assured to the dead hosts of the churchyard the profit of prayers. The arrangement of places is rather similar to that of the médersa. To the right one can see the rests of the oratory with its mihrab encircled with a semicircular corridor; It was enough formerly to make seven times the tour of it to deserve the title of hadj, normally reserved for the pilgrims of Mecca. To the left rises charming minaret built by Abou el Hassan where the stone, the marble and the earthenware become allied in her skates the years for the most beautiful effect; a nest of storks crowns the lanternon decorated with zelliges. Return to the entrance of the churchyard. Immediately after the door, to turn to the right and follow the wall up to the foot of the minaret. To the right opens the access to the Roman ruins.