Photo: Chris Martin from Decatur, Georgia, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk through Meknes, from the medina into the imperial city that Moulay Ismail built after choosing it as his capital in 1672. It starts at Bab Berdaine and goes through the medina to the Marinid Bou Inania Madrasa, with its 39 student rooms, the Grand Mosque and the Dar Jamai, the vizier's palace of 1882 that has been a museum since 1920. It heads west to the old Mellah, the Jewish quarter Moulay Ismail created beside his citadel, and Bab el-Khemis, dated 1687, then back to Place el-Hedim, named for the demolition that cleared it, and Bab Mansour, completed after the sultan's death in 1727. Inside the imperial city come the parade ground of Place Lalla Aouda, the underground storerooms of Habs Qara, the mausoleum of Moulay Ismail and the long corridor of Bab er-Rih. The walk ends at Heri es-Souani, the vaulted granaries damaged in the earthquake of 1755, and the Agdal basin that held the city's water reserve. Meknes has no cruise port nearby, so cruise passengers come on the ship's own excursion.
14 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 206 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 17 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Bab Berdaine, Bou Inania Madrasa, Grand Mosque of Meknes, Dar Jamai Museum, Mellah of Meknes.
Bab el-Khemis, Place el-Hedim, Bab Mansour, Place Lalla Aouda.
Habs Qara, Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, Bab er-Rih, Heri es-Souani, Agdal basin.
The Marinid college named for Abu Inan Faris, its courtyard in zellij, stucco and cedar, with 39 rooms where Qur'an students lived.
The Jewish quarter Moulay Ismail created beside his citadel, with old synagogues, a 1682 cemetery and carved wooden balconies.
The ceremonial gate into the imperial city, finished after Moulay Ismail's death in 1727, with marble columns said to come from Volubilis.
A network of dark vaulted chambers under the ground, built for food storage, whose name means Qara's prison.
The tomb of the sultan who made Meknes his capital, reached through three courtyards, with four grandfather clocks by the tombs.
The vast vaulted granaries built to feed the city and its cavalry through siege or drought, with water channels under the floor.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 14 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 14 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Meknes — the Imperial City of Moulay Ismail, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
14 narration points, including Bab Berdaine, Dar Jamai Museum, Mellah of Meknes, Bab el-Khemis and Place el-Hedim. That is about 21 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 14 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.