Many traces of that refined and pleasure-loving Saadian world remain in the cuisine, and not only in Marrakesh: Moroccan cuisine is the best of the Arab world, on a par with that of the Lebanon. Amongst the most famous dishes is couscous (steamed semolina served with vegetables or meat) - now familiar to Europeans and found all over North Africa. More typically Moroccan are the tajine (chicken or mutton stew with vegetables, prunes and dates) and bstilla (an elaborate pie filled with pigeon meat, sugar, almonds, saffron and coriander): their balanced sweet and sour flavour is to a certain extent a reflection of the country, where sugar plays an important role and not just at table.

But is Morocco really all like this? If you climb up to the hills, you will discover the grim face of the Maghreb. It is called Meknes and it is the second imperial city; from afar it looks like a long snake, because it is encircled by walls, 25 kilometres of them. A titanic effort: one wonders how many worked at it. Meknes is the work of one Sultan alone, Moulay Ismail (1672-1727), of the Alawite dynasty. He sacked the ancient Roman city of Volubilis for the stones; to finance the works he legalized piracy; then to celebrate the work he beheaded on the bastions 700 "enemies" who had opposed the project. It is hard not to remember this as you pass through the Bab el Mansour gateway, all tiled with green majolica. Inside, a second circle protects Dar Kebira, the royal citadel: Ismail lived there, with a Pharaonic court said to have included 500 concubines, 12,000 horses, 25,000 slaves and 30,000 black militia. Huge stables are still there to prove that he certainly kept all those horses. The rest should be taken with a pinch of salt since the excesses of the lord of Meknes were used as propaganda by Europe, seeking an alibi for its colonial aspirations. Many have played at depicting Ismail as an Arab Dracula: from John Windus, an Englishman of the 1700s, who called him "a man the colour of death" to Michele Mercier, sex-symbol of the Sixties, who dedicated a successful film in the series Angelica to him.

But Meknes - and hence Moulay Ismail - must be given credit for at least one thing: the hills outside the city produce the best grapes in the country. This is the Morocco of green leaves and flowers after all. The local wines are called Sidi Larbi, Gheromane, Sidi Bouhai: of course the Grand Cru de Bourgogne is a very different matter; but the reds, whites and roses seem a miracle if you consider that the desert is not far away and that Islam forbids its followers to drink alcohol. Yet the grapes and wine are not produced in infidel, marginal areas: this is the heart of Morocco: a little north is Moulay Idriss, a holy city for Islam, where still today non-Muslims cannot stay overnight; and if you follow the vineyards you will come to Fez, the "moral capital" of the country.

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