Badia Palace and Medina walking tour

We met our city guide again this morning for a walking tour of the Medina, and a visit to Badia Palace.

We did the palace first to beat the crowds - a good move, as the queue to buy tickets when we came out was lengthy!

Completed in 1900, Bahia Palace isn't a royal palace, but was built by Ahmed bin Musa, the Grand Vizier of Morocco - effectively the head public servant, but with direct access and influence over the Sultan, so he was the defacto ruler of the kingdom. Upon the sultan's death Ahmed enthroned the Sultan's third son as the new Sultan, a boy of 14, effectively giving Ahmed complete rule of the country. He built the palace to house his four wives and numerous concubines, and named it after his favourite concubine!

We then did a walking tour of the Medina for 3 hours, exploring many, many streets we missed the first 3 days we were here, including the metal workers street, leather worker's street and spice market.

We had lunch at a cafe just off the main square, did a bit more shopping, and returned to our hotel for a few hours by the pool (bit too cold to swim though)Leggi altro