What can you do in Meknes in one day?

Meknes is the imperial city travellers skip, and that's exactly why I love sending people for a day — you get monumental 17th-century grandeur without the crowds of Fes 60 kilometres away. I start on Place el-Hedim, the grand square, facing Bab Mansour: arguably the most beautiful monumental gate in all of Morocco, a riot of green-and-white zellij and marble columns looted from Roman Volubilis. It was built by Sultan Moulay Ismail, the fearsome ruler who made Meknes his capital and modelled it, with vast ambition, on Versailles.

Just across the way is the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, one of the few religious shrines in Morocco that non-Muslims may enter. Its serene courtyards and richly decorated tomb chamber are a quiet, dignified contrast to the bustle outside, and worth the visit. From there I'd walk to Ismail's astonishing engineering legacy: the Heri es-Souani, the immense royal granaries and stables built to feed 12,000 horses, with their cathedral-like vaulted halls, beside the huge Agdal water basin where locals stroll at dusk.

The medina rounds out the day. Meknes's old town is compact, walkable and refreshingly low-pressure — the souks here sell to locals more than tourists, so you can browse the metalwork, textiles and the famous local olives and wine without the hard sell. Stop for lunch at a café on Place el-Hedim and just watch the imperial city go by.

One day is plenty for Meknes itself. The clever move, which I recommend constantly, is to combine it with Volubilis and Moulay Idriss just up the road — together they make one of the best day trips in Morocco, an easy loop from Fes that packs Roman ruins, a holy hilltop town and an under-visited imperial capital into a single, unhurried day.