The Menara Gardens

The Menara is not a flower garden but a working agricultural landscape that has survived since the Almohad period: a large rectangular reservoir fed by a channel from the mountains, surrounded by an olive grove of many hectares. It was built to irrigate the orchards and it still does. On the basin's edge stands a green-roofed pavilion, rebuilt in the nineteenth century, and the classic view is of it mirrored in the water with the High Atlas behind, which works properly only when the peaks are snowy and the air is clear. Locals use the grove as a park, walking, sitting and fishing at the basin, and entry to the grounds is free.

History

The Almohad ruler Abd al-Mu'min laid out the estate around 1157, west of the city walls, with two great reservoirs - the one you see today and the Sahrij al-Bgar, now empty, south-east of the gardens - inside a wall some six miles long; the engineer was probably Hajj al-Ya'ish of Málaga, who also built the moving minbar of the Kutubiyya Mosque. The gardens declined when the Marinids moved the capital to Fez in the 13th century, and the Saadians restored them and built the first pavilion in the 16th. The name Menara first appears in 1579. Their present form comes from the Alaouite sultans Moulay Abd ar-Rahman and his son Muhammad IV, who replanted the orchards and restored the water supply; the current pavilion, built on the ruins of the Saadian one, was finished in 1870, a date fixed by an inscription on its balcony arch. Until the early 20th century ostriches were raised here (Wikipedia, Menara Gardens).

The main sights

• The basin and pavilion - the reservoir with the green-roofed building at its end.
• The Atlas view - the mountains behind the water on clear winter days.
• The olive grove - hectares of old olives still irrigated from the basin.
• The water channels - the irrigation system that feeds the reservoir.

When to go

Winter and early spring are when the Atlas is snow-capped and the famous view actually appears; in summer haze the mountains often vanish altogether. Late afternoon light is best on the pavilion. Weekends and evenings bring local families out to the grove. Water levels drop in dry years, so the reflection is not always there.

Practical notes

The gardens are plainer than photographs suggest: a big pool, a lot of olive trees and dusty paths, with the mountains frequently invisible through haze. The basin water is green and can smell. Entry to the pavilion is charged and its interior is bare. Persistent guides and photographers work the basin edge. It is a half hour stop rather than an afternoon.

Nearby

The Koutoubia and the medina are a short drive east, and the Agdal gardens lie south of the city.

Key facts