Ouarzazate, view of the fortress walls of the old city (Taourirt fortress)
Ouarzazate(in Russian the name of the city is sometimes written as Ouarzazate, Ourzazate; in French Ouarzazate) is a small but very interesting city for tourists, located 200 km southeast of the city. Ouarzazate is located at an altitude of 1135 m above sea level. Today, Ouarzazate has become a cinematic capital. What kind of films have not been filmed here! The picturesque desert surroundings and the even climate of Ouarzazate greatly contribute to this.
How to get to Ouarzazate
By plane
There are regular flights to Ouarzazate airport from.
By car from Marrakech
The road from Marrakech rises to High Atlas mountains, passes through the famous Tizi-n-Tichka pass, located at a height 2260 m, and gradually descends towards Ouarzazate. The road is good and reliable. The journey takes approximately 2.5-3 hours. It makes sense to stop at the fortress Ait Benhatdou- it’s very beautiful there.
By car from Agadir
Ouarzazate is located approximately 360-400 km from the resort. The first half of the journey passes through the valley Sousse River, through cities and towns, including a favorite among tourists Taroudant. The second half of the route is laid through a less populated area, the road there is quite narrow. Usually the journey takes 4.5-5 hours.
By car from Erfoud and Rissani
From the city Erfoud Ouarzazate is a little more than 300 km away. You can get there in just over four hours, but usually it takes longer: the places are picturesque, you want to stop, take a walk, or even spend the night in exotic conditions. The shorter, northern road from Erfoud passes through a densely populated area. From the town Tinghir you can turn north from the main road and get into Todra Gorge. All the way to Ouarzazate they meet every now and then settlements. Among them is the famous fortified Kelaa M'Gouna village where in the spring it takes place rose festival and all kinds of perfumes based on rose oil are sold. Another road passes through Rissani. Rissani is the ancestral village of the present royal dynasty Morocco. Here you can turn south and come to the village Merzouga- outpost on the border Sahara desert. The road from Rissani to Ouarzazate passes through a fairly deserted area, with only occasional villages.
By bus
They go to Ouarzazate buses from CTM companies andSupraTours. There are flights from Inezgan (near Agadir) and from Marrakech.
Sights of Ouarzazate
Until its cinematic heyday in the 20th century, Ouarzazate was little more than a fortress and transit point on the route of trade caravans from the Sahara to the interior of Morocco and on to Europe. Therefore, there are not many historical attractions here. Actually, there are two of them: Taourirt Fortress (Kasbah Taourirt) and Glaoui Palace (Glaoui). Another attraction of Ouarzazate can be considered its main street. Like the main streets of many other cities in Morocco, it bears the name of Mohammed V. It is a wide thoroughfare stretching from one end of the city to the other.
Taourirt Fortress
The fortress was built in the 17th century. Then there was no Ouarzazate here yet, but there was the village of Taourirt. The owners of these places - the Berber clan Glaoui - built the fortress. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the Pasha of Marrakesh, Tami El Glaoui, settled here in the palace. He tried to resist the establishment of a French protectorate over Morocco. Several cannons from that time have been preserved in the Taurirt fortress. From them the Pasha fired at the Europeans. As a result, the French tread was installed after all. and Pasha managed to come to an agreement with the Europeans and lived well, constantly getting richer, until his death in 1956.
The descendants of the inhabitants of the village of Taurirt live behind the fortress walls to this day. It is very interesting to stroll through the clean and tidy streets of the village. Like anywhere in Morocco, it’s hard to leave here without souvenirs.
Palace of Glaoui
The Glaoui Palace is a rather fragile structure, which in our time they are trying with all their might to preserve. The fact is that the building materials for the palace were clay, straw and limestone. As a result, even now, after some 300 years, the palace looks very shabby, corroded by the winds. But this only makes him more attractive. The interior of the palace is accessible to visitors.
Ait Benhaddou Fortress
30 km north of Ouarzazate, on the road to Marrakesh, is located one of the most picturesque fortresses in Morocco - the fortress of Ait Benhaddou. Strictly speaking, this is not exactly a fortress, but fortifications built around the village. Behind them lies the entire village and the entire infrastructure of the village: wells, granaries, cattle stalls, etc. The appearance of these fortified walls is so impressive against the beautiful landscape that tourists visiting Ouarzazate often rank this fortress above that of Taourirt.
Tifultoutte Fortress (Kasbah Tifoultoutte)
10 km north of Ouarzazate there is another interesting fortress. In addition to its picturesqueness, the Tifultu fortress is interesting because in the 17th century a small Jewish community moved here, of which only a few families remain today.
Film studios
Every film fan visiting Morocco considers it his duty to visit Ouarzazate in order to visit the famous Atlas Corporation film studios and just wander around the places where famous movies were filmed.
Film studios near Ouarzazate appeared in the 80s of the 20th century, but the history of cinema in Morocco began much earlier. Also in 1897 Lumière brothers sent their cameramen to Morocco to film on location. In 1944, the Cinema Center was opened in Rabat, and in 1968 the first Mediterranean Film Festival was held in Tangier. But be that as it may, it was Ouarzazate that became the mecca of filmmakers. The film Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here in 1962, and by the 1980s local filmmakers realized the need for permanent studios.
In 1986, Atlas Corporation studios pavilions were erected 5 km from the city. Now, in order to slowly explore everything, tourists can stay in a 3* hotel, which is located next to the studios. But! You can visit Atlas Studios only if there is no filming going on there at the moment.
In addition to Atlas Studios, near Ouarzazate there are:
- Dino Laurentiis Stdios- a huge complex that claims to become the largest film set in Africa;
- Ester-Andromeda Studios- a small film studio where about 20 films were shot, mostly Italian biblical stories;
- Kanzamane Studios- The educational center.
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Finally, in the evening we reach the town of Ouarzazate.
Near Ouarzazate, work was carried out on such films as “Asterix and the Obelisk: The Mission of Cleopatra”, “Banzai”, “Gladiator”, “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “Alexander the Great” and many others.
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But first, a few more cards taken at the entrance to Ouarzazate.
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You can often see houses like this right on the rocks. There isn’t even a road there, or it’s simply not visible from here..
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The road to Ouarzazate itself is unusual, considered the most picturesque of Moroccan roads. Berber tribes have long lived in this region, and trade routes passed from the north of Morocco to its south.
The inhabitants of the villages tried their best to protect them and built fortifications around them - ksars, or fortresses - kasbahs. It’s not for nothing that this road is now called the Road of a Thousand Fortresses.
The kasbahs were built from clay with a small addition of sand, straw, etc. This material is quite fragile, so the appearance of the fortresses along the road is very different from each other. Here you can find both perfectly preserved fortresses, more like elegant palaces, and their ruins, in which it is not always possible to guess the former purpose of the building.
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And the Atlas Mountains are already very close. The classic combination of palm trees and snowy peaks comes from here!
Ouarzazate or Ouarzazate, which means "silent" in Berber, is a small city in the south of Morocco. Its population is just over forty thousand people.
The Paris-Dakkar International Raceway is also located in close proximity to the city.
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As I already said, we arrived after sunset and only had time to wander the streets a little ancient city. The evening is quite cool. Children burn a fire to keep warm.
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In one of the alleys, a little varzazatka (-zazachka) started a game of cat and mouse with me.
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Then her mother appeared and that was the end of the game.
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It’s somehow calm there, without fuss, where are the traffic jams? There is not..
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It's nice to sit on the stairs and smoke...
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Same shot, but I liked the little detail. It is not the grandmother herself who waves her hand to her grandson, but her shadow on the wall. Yes?
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Step keys and souvenir vendor.
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Quite high, serious walls surround the city center.
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But perhaps the most famous place in the vicinity of Ouarzazate is the Kasbah of Ait Benhaddou, which is worthy of a separate post.
We specially woke up early to capture it against the backdrop of the sunrise mountains.
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City Ouarzazate located in the south of Morocco, on the eastern side of the Atlas Mountains. It is a small and very interesting city for tourists. It is decorated with large pink citadel-fortresses, one of the most ancient and grandiose in Morocco.
How to get there
- bus
- automobile
- airplane
Transport
Nature
The climate is subtropical, hot, and there is little precipitation. IN winter months(December-February) the temperature does not fall below +19 degrees, and in summer it reaches +40 degrees. The rivers Draa, Ziz and Dades flow through the city. Palm thickets grow around the rivers and small villages are concentrated. Nature programs are often filmed here. It is not surprising that the remains of dinosaurs were discovered here, whose age, according to archaeologists, is about 180 million years. The valley stretches along the river bed for 200 km from Ouarzazate to Zagora, which is also known as the “gate of the desert”. The path passes through numerous palm groves and lush villages. This route is considered a classic route for Morocco as it allows you to see traditional Berber villages. The most adventurous travelers can continue to Zagora to see the first sand dunes of the Sahara Desert. The highest dune reaches 150 meters. It is from Zagora that all tours along the sands of the Sahara start. The main routes pass through the Red Dunes, dry riverbeds and rocky areas. Zagora used to be on the caravan route leading to Timbuktu.
- semi-deserts
- deserts
- animals:
- insects:
- birds:
- vegetation:
Flora and fauna
Infrastructure
There is a film studio in Ouarzazate, it is modernly equipped and one of the largest in the world. Tourists can explore the local Kasbah of Ait Benhaddou, a Berber fortified clay town that served as a refuge during wars, located 20 km northwest of the city. This Kasbah is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. To the east of Ouarzazate is the Dades Gorge, which contains a deep canyon. There is a strong wind blowing in the canyon. Lions once lived in the area of the gorge, but the last of them was killed in 1905. This gorge leads to the Berber villages of the High Atlas, such as Agudal and Imilchil, which host a marriage festival in September where young women and men from all over the region gather in the hope of finding a mate, and from the village of Agudal you can access the Todra Gorge - one of the most picturesque natural attractions of Morocco. The path goes among palm groves growing along the banks of a dry river bed, after which it comes to a gorge, the width of which is only 10 meters, while the sheer cliffs that border it reach a height of 300 meters.
The Moroccan southern city of Ouarzazate is known throughout the world as the capital of African cinema. Here, among the picturesque deserts and adobe kasbahs, films with the most unexpected oriental subjects have been filmed for more than thirty years. The stable climate of the hottest continent and the great interest of the local residents greatly contribute to the development of the local film industry. Ouarzazate is a cinema legend, so every traveler is simply obliged to visit at least once one of the largest film studios in the world called “Atlas” to wander among the sets for your favorite films and feel the atmosphere of “another world” with all your gut.
A little historyOuarzazate got its name from the popular Berber expression “without confusion” or “without noise”. Ouarzazate was once just one of the cities with a population of about 55 thousand people. Traders used it as a stopover on their way to the European market, and local residents could not even imagine that the modest Ouarzazate would one day become a film set for real works of cinema.
Everything changed in 1983, when it was decided to open a film studio among palm groves and endless sands. Since then, more than 50 films that are famous and loved by fans have been filmed here. Among them are such films as “Under the Veil of Heaven” and “Kundun”, “Cleopatra” with the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor and “The Pearl of the Nile” with Michael Douglas, “Night in Casablanca” by the Marx Brothers and “Return of the Mummy”, “Ali Baba and 40 Thieves”, “Troy”, the film “Asterix and Obelix: Cleopatra’s Mission”, popular among children, as well as many others.
By the way, the remains of ancient dinosaurs, which are more than 180 million years old, were found on the territory of Ouarzazate. The discovered animals were the ancestors of diplodocus and brachiosaurs, and modern man, most likely, their appearance would evoke associations with a rhinoceros. They are very similar, but only the size is completely different - the found remains turned out to be about 9 meters.
What to see in the city?Like any place on Earth, Ouarzazate is interesting for the traveler, first of all, as another new town, where any street is suitable for exploration. Everything here is interesting to a newly arrived guest, and everything is completely unfamiliar. To begin with, according to good tourist tradition, it is worth visiting. There aren't that many of them here. Two interesting medieval kasbahs, both protected by UNESCO, Taourirt and. The latter is located in the village of the same name, in the Draa Valley, near the border with Algeria.
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Due to the particular popularity of the hotpot, Ouarzazate is full of decent hotels. The cost of one night and breakfast in all hotels is different, starts from 170 MAD and can reach 750. If you want to experience the exotic to the fullest, you can stay in a riad hotel. Riad means “garden” in Arabic, so, as you already understand from the name, the riad hotel has a courtyard garden with a lovely fountain and fruit trees.
As for restaurants and cafes, there are a lot of them in the city. You can have a full lunch with tagine and couscous. They are very filling and, moreover, are not too expensive. For example, a tagine in any restaurant on Mohammed V Avenue costs no more than 30 MAD. If you are planning a romantic date, go to Douyria restaurant. The culinary heritage left over from the times of French rule in the country can be tasted in the Accord Majeur and La Kasbah des Sables restaurants.
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An unforgettable trip to Ouarzazate starts from. If your point “A” is, you will have to shake in a stuffy bus for about 4-5 hours. The cost of this dubious pleasure is 80 MAD. In the “grand taxi” the conditions are better, but the ticket price is also higher – 100 MAD. Unlike buses, there is no timetable; This transport sets off only when the last place is occupied by another tourist. Whatever you choose, you cannot avoid the gorgeous view outside the window - you are guaranteed aesthetic pleasure from the quickly changing picturesque landscapes.
By the way, if you are leaving from or, travel will cost you twice as much and will take approximately 7 hours of your precious time.
Okayama Prefecture is located on the western side of the island of Honshu. It has borders with the prefectures of Hyogo, Tottori, and Hiroshima. The total area of the prefecture is 7092 square meters. kilometer The population of Okayama is 1,925,000 people.
The mild climate of the area contributes to successful farming. In Japan, Okayama is called "fruit paradise" because the grapes, peaches, melons, strawberries and tangerines grown here are distinguished by their quality and unsurpassed taste throughout Japan. The prefecture is called "the land sunlight", since sunny weather here is much more common than rainy.
The mountainous areas of the prefecture are favorable for the cultivation of unusual matsutake, shiitake and chestnut mushrooms. Locals are proud of the quality and taste of the rice grown here. The proximity of expanses of water makes it possible to provide residents of the prefecture with various seafood: fish, shrimp, seaweed, and so on. The sea coast has a number of hotel complexes and boarding houses.
Okayama Prefecture is an industrial, modern area of the Chugoku region with developed infrastructure. The southern part of the prefecture has large factories, large enterprises (Mitsubishi Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industries). The prefecture's transport industry is also well developed, with several new highways and railway lines built. All this makes Okayama an important communication center and intermediate transportation point.
During the bombing of World War II, Okayama was completely destroyed several times, but was later rebuilt.
On the territory of Okayama there is the local prefectural museum, the Museum of Art, the Museum of the East, the Korakuen Garden, the castle of the city of Okayama, the largest symphony concert hall in the country, and the museum of the artist Takeshis Yumeji, a native of Okayama.
Koraku-en GardenKoraku-en Garden is one of the three most famous parks in Japan, along with Kairaku-en and Kenroku-en. The park was originally called Koen (late garden) because it was created after the completion of Okayama Castle, which the park is opposite. Koraku-en received its name in 1871. Koraku-en Park covers an area of 13 hectares and is located in the Asahigawa area. There are about 300 sakura trees in the garden. Work on laying out Koraku-en began in 1687 and was completed in 1702 by the local feudal lord Ikeda Tsunamasa. The park has existed in its current form since 1863. In 1871, Koraku-en was transferred to Okayama Prefecture, and since 1884 it has been open to visitors. During the Second World War, in 1945, this park-garden was heavily damaged by bombing, but was subsequently restored according to ancient drawings and drawings.
Okayama Castle
Okayama Castle was built between 1346 and 1369 by the aristocratic Nava family. Rebuilt in 1573-1597, the reconstruction was completed by daimyo Ukita Hideie. During the Second World War, in the summer of 1945, it was destroyed by bombing and rebuilt in 1964-1966. Because of its black color, which is very unusual for Japanese buildings, Okayama Castle was also called Raven Castle. In Japan, there is only one other “black castle”, Matsumoto Castle, also called “crow”, with the same hieroglyph, but a different reading.
Kurashiki
Up close administrative center Okayama is home to the small town of Kurashiki, which is called the “Venice of Japan” because it has a picturesque canal built during the Edo period. In Kurashiki, there are a large number of warehouses that used to store rice; now they have been converted into museums, restaurants, and shops.
During the Edo era, Kurashiki was an important trading city. During the years of industrialization, the townspeople of Kurashiki came out in defense of the architectural monuments of the city that were threatened with demolition, thanks to active position residents managed to save many ancient buildings. The name “Kurashiki” itself translates as “warehouse village”. Many granary-kura buildings, lined with black tiles, have survived to this day.
During the Shogunate, rice and others food products from rural areas they arrived at warehouses, after which they were loaded onto barges and sent along the river further into the Inland Sea of Japan. There are no electrical lines in the area (or rather, they are camouflaged as much as possible) in order to maintain the main background, as close as possible to the time period of the beginning of the Meiji period. In the twentieth century, Kurashiki was run by the Ohara family, involved in the weaving industry. They remain in people's memory famous topics, which provided decent working conditions and benefits for workers, generously funded hospitals and schools, and also invested a lot of money in the construction of museums.
Bikan-tiku Quarter
South of the city station begins the ancient district of Bikan, where kura buildings built more than 200 years ago rise along a picturesque canal surrounded by willows. Most of the buildings today house art galleries, restaurants, shops and hotels. Not far from the canal is Kurashiki Willow Square, a huge commercial complex that includes shops, restaurants, hotels, museums and an orchid growing center.
Ohara Museum
Magosaburo Ohara, a businessman and philanthropist, is the founder of the Ohara Art Museum (Ohara Bijutsukan), Japan's first museum of European painting and sculpture.
The Ohara Art Museum is the best of the museums in the historical quarters. The basis of the exhibition is the private collection of Ohara Magosaburo, donated to the state in 1930. The first works that formed the museum's fund were works by the French symbolist painter Edmond Aman-Jean and the Japanese painter Kojima Torajiro. Over time, it expanded and began to include works of the Italian Renaissance, Dutch and Flemish painting of the 17th century, modern American and Italian painting. Among the paintings there are a number of rare works by European masters - Matisse, Renoir, Picasso, Gauguin and Degas. There are also real masterpieces here, for example, “The Annunciation” by El Greco.
Inujima Island ("dog island") is also located in the prefecture. It gets its name because the shape of a large rock resembles the outline of a sitting dog. Over the past few years, it has hosted exhibitions of avant-garde art.
