Photo: Chrisi1964 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the Roman city of Volubilis, about 30 kilometres north of Meknes. It starts at the site museum with the city's story: a Mauretanian settlement, then a Roman provincial capital, later Walila, where Idris I established himself in 787 or 788 CE, until the 1755 earthquake brought its buildings down. Through the southern quarter it visits the olive presses, some fifty-eight of them across the site, the House of Orpheus with its circular mosaic, and Galen's Baths with their underfloor heating. At the civic centre come the Capitoline Temple, the Basilica, where storks nest on the capitals, the Forum's inscribed statue bases and the Arch of Caracalla of AD 217. The last part follows the Decumanus Maximus past the great houses, from the Bacchus mosaics of the Ephebe and the Knight to Dionysus and the Four Seasons, the 74-room Gordian Palace and the Tangier Gate of 168/169 CE, ending at the House of Venus and its chariot race of animals. There is no cruise port nearby, so cruise passengers come on the ship's own excursion.
18 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 · 7 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 5 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.
Volubilis Site Museum, Olive presses, House of Orpheus, Galen's Baths, Capitoline Temple.
Basilica, Forum, Arch of Caracalla, Northern Baths, House of the Ephebe.
House of the Columns, House of the Knight, House of the Labours of Hercules, House of Dionysus and the Four Seasons, Decumanus Maximus, Gordian Palace, Tangier Gate, House of Venus.
About fifty-eight olive presses found across the site, in houses and workshops, show how much the city lived on olive oil.
A wealthy house with a circular mosaic of Orpheus playing to the animals, a dolphin mosaic and its own heated bath suite.
The law court beside the Forum, later turned into a church, its reconstructed columns topped by capitals where storks nest.
The arch of AD 217 for Caracalla and his mother Julia Domna, at the western end of the Decumanus Maximus, partly rebuilt in modern times.
A dining room floor found in 1948, with Dionysus in a vine-leaf crown and Medusa and Nemesis guarding the doorway.
A great house with its own baths and mosaics of a chariot race pulled by unusual animals and Diana surprised while bathing.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 18 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. 18 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 Volubilis — the Roman City below the Zerhoun, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
18 narration points, including Volubilis Site Museum, Olive presses, House of Orpheus, Galen's Baths and Basilica. That is about 25 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. 18 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.