ProcessWire in subdirectory

[MECU]

I have PW installed in subdirectory /pages. This makes all my pages load with URLs like /pages/{slug} which is what I want as I'm only using PW as the CMS for static pages and articles. However I would like the /pages/ url to be redirected to / of the site.

I've tried this in the .htaccess file:

    # Redirect /pages to /
    RewriteRule ^pages/$ / [L,R=301]

right after this:

  # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  # Ensure that the URL follows the name-format specification required by ProcessWire
  # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} "^/~?[-_.a-zA-Z0-9/]*$"

I did mod the .htaccess in the /pages directory. I also tried the .htaccess in the public directory.

I also tried:

    RewriteRule ^pages$ / [L,R=301]
    RewriteRule ^(pages/)$ / [L,R=301]
    RewriteRule ^(pages)/$ / [L,R=301]
    RewriteRule ^(pages)$ / [L,R=301]

Any suggestions?

[JeffS]

First you should confirm that mod_rewrite is active. 

This should work for you (remove comment #).

# RewriteRule ^pages/ / [L,R=301]