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© Maria Lucia DornasIfrane The Atlas lion

The Middle Atlas is part of the Atlas mountain range, a vast mountainous region with more than 100,000 km2

The first real town of the Middle Atlas, AZROU 

Azrou grew at the crossroads of two major routes – north to Meknes and Fez, south to Khenifra and Midelt – and long held a strategic role in controlling the mountain Berbers. Moulay Ismail built a kasbah here, the remains of which survive, while more recently the French established the prestigious Collège Berbère – one plank in their policy to split the country’s Berbers from the urban Arabs

Azrou college

Azrou,placeMohammedV

Azrou is 89 kilometres south of Fez, at an altitude of 1250 m and surrounded by mountains covered with green oak and cedar

The city was long neglected by the Moroccan authorities since independence in 1956 to the detriment of the nearby town of Ifrane

Azrou is the Berber word for rock and town takes its name from the huge rock mountain near the centre of town.

Azrou is a town with much to see even if what you won't find are berber carpets. But you can see three carpets on a wall  

Berber rugs from Berber village

You won't find fresher fruits unless you pick them yourself

The mosque Annour (Alaouites)

South of Azrou lies some of the most remote and beautiful country of the Middle Atlas: a region of dense cedar forests

The Cèdre Gouraud Forest is located to the north, where one of the sub-populations of the Barbary macaque, Macaca sylvanus (called magots) is found 

The driving distance between Azrou and Khenifra, the heart of the Middle Atlas, is 81 km

Oum Er-Rbia River ("the mother of

springtime“) the second-largest river

in Morocco after the Sebou River, is

555 km long

Khenifra’s walls were red washed, to absorb the sun

Khenifra (population 118,000) is

surrounded by the Atlas

Mountains and located on

the Oum Er-Rbia River

Khenifra is inhabited

by Zayanes, a Berber tribe, and

the language

spoken is a variety

of Central Atlas

Tamazight

 Khenifra National Park is east of the town, and

contains forests of Atlas

cedars (Cedrus atlantica)

Cedrus atlantica, the Atlas cedar, is a cedar native to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco (Middle Atlas, High Atlas), to the Rif, and to the Tell Atlas in Algeria. A majority of the modern sources treat it as a distinct species Cedrus atlantica, but some sources consider it a subspecies of Lebanon cedar (C. libani subsp. atlantica)

Red Soil of Africa "The Shona say the color comes from all the blood that's being spilled fighting over the land.."

Barrage Ahmed El Hansali on the river Oum Er Rbia at the northern foot of the Middle Atlas mountains near Khenifra

Sound: Yosefa - A postcard from Morocco 2016

Text: InternetPictures: Sanda Negruțiu Sanda Foişoreanu InternetCopyright: All the images belong to their authors

Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanuhttps://plus.google.com/+SandaMichaela