What Roman and ancient sites are there in Morocco?

Many people are surprised that Morocco has Roman ruins at all, but the country was the western frontier of the empire — the province of Mauretania Tingitana — and before Rome it was Phoenician and Carthaginian and then a Berber kingdom. The archaeology is genuinely first-rate, and because the sites are uncrowded and set in beautiful countryside, visiting them is a pleasure rather than a scrum. For lovers of antiquity it's a real highlight.

Volubilis is the one you must not miss. Set on a fertile plain near Meknes and Moulay Idriss, it's the best-preserved Roman site in Morocco and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You walk among standing columns of the basilica and Capitoline temple, pass under the Arch of Caracalla, trace the main Decumanus Maximus street, and — the real treasure — see superb floor mosaics still in their original houses, open to the sky: the Labours of Hercules, Orpheus charming the animals, Bacchus, Diana bathing. An olive press and the remains of grand townhouses bring daily Roman life right up close. I always pair it with the nearby whitewashed holy town of Moulay Idriss for a perfect day from Fes or Meknes.

Beyond Volubilis, Lixus sits above the Loukkos estuary near Larache on the Atlantic coast — a layered Phoenician, Mauretanian and Roman site with an amphitheatre, temples and the famous salting factories that processed fish and the prized garum sauce. In Rabat, the Chellah is built over the Roman town of Sala, where Roman ruins and a later Merinid necropolis intertwine among gardens and nesting storks — atmospheric and easy to reach in the capital.

Other threads round it out: Tangier was ancient Tingis, the provincial capital, and its Kasbah Museum displays Roman-era finds and mosaics; Banasa and Thamusida add further Roman river-town sites for the keen; and across museums you'll meet the era's bronze sculptures. The crown jewels — the celebrated Volubilis bronzes and the magnificent prehistoric and ancient collections — are now beautifully displayed in the National Archaeology and Earth Sciences museums. For a focused trip, base in Fes or Meknes for Volubilis, add Rabat's Chellah, and you've seen the best of Roman Morocco.