January 14, 2004



Tangier-Fez

We spent most of the day on the bus going through the mountains toward Fez. We stopped at two sets of Roman ruins along the way. We were able to explore the second one for about an hour. The population of the city was over 20,000 at one time. The marketplace had space for 120 shops. Some of the original mosaics in the floor are still intact and display images of various Roman gods. The ruins were actually completely whole until the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755. There is an archaeological team that is supposed to be

working on the restoration, but lack of government funding has pretty much halted progress.

We had lunch in a town where the grandson of Mohammed settled. Because it is in the mountains, the people are an odd mix of Berber and Arab peoples; some even have red hair. On the way back along the road, we stopped to look over the mountains, and I got to take a picture of a group harvesting olives.