Not only is this the nicest hotel we've stayed in, it puts on a pretty good breakfast spread too, including eggs, (beef?) sausage, salads, etc. Nope, no fruit. We were out the door early for an all-day exploration of the city, mostly in the Medina. We had a local guide named Idriss for our day tour - he was born in the Medina and seemed to know lots of people based on all the greetings he received.
is between the Rif Mountains and middle Atlas Mountains, and was protected by two fortresses, one south and one north - we drove up to the south one to get a view of the Medina before starting our tour there.
Still outside of the Medina, we looked at the outside of the king’s Fes palace and walked through the Jewish quarter - called the mellah. It's architecturally distinct from the Medina, because the mellah has outward facing balconies. It's under renovation, with new cedar storefronts.
There were mulberries for sale in the mellah - I have never eaten them, and didn't try today. They look like giant blackberries, but grow on trees. I will have to add them to the bucket list - it's not something we see here. We had seen people transporting mulberries by mule yesterday - I gather that they have a very short shelf-live. As a consolation, we did have a delicious date stuffed with a walnut.
Have I mentioned that there are no photos of soldiers or police allowed. So although we did see their occasional presence, that won't be apparent in the pictures. The most striking thing was checkpoints at the entry to towns - that's how our dumbass bike thieves got caught. You'd think they'd know that about their own country?
I’ll share the sights in photos. But I’ll also remember the sounds and smells.
It was fascinating to see that the mosaics are built upside down, without being able to see the already-painted side. He’s making the top of a small table.
Having already done quite a bit of touring, we then went into the Medina for a few hours. It's the biggest Medina in Morocco, with 300,000 residents surrounded by 15 km of walls. The Medina has a creek running through it, now partly under the roads and in a concrete channel. The water quality looked pretty awful in the open channel we saw.
We did no biking today, but lots of walking since there are no motorbikes or cars allowed in the Medina. Apparently mules have the right of way over pedestrians, but I think we only saw one of them all day. They'd have a hard time navigating the zillions of people in the streets.
It was fascinating to see the different zones of the Medina. There are areas for selling food, brass, dying fabrics, tanning leather and creating leather goods, making jewellery, even things as specific as selling sunglasses.
We saw a tannery dating from the 14th century (or maybe the 11th century - my mind was overwhelmed with info and my notes don’t match what Wikipedia says). Tanning requires many steps and ingredients including pigeon poop. We saw people enter the vats to deal with hides. It looks like terrible work. And no doubt adds to the nasty looking creek.
My least favourite part of the tour was visiting the city-founding mullah’s tomb. It was ridiculously crowded with lots of people burning incense.
Lunch came just in time to relieve me from people overload. It was another delicious meal - we had cooked salads again to start - the same selection as last night, plus a cauliflower salad. I had lamb tagine with prunes as my main, and it melted in my mouth.
No wonder the Medina is car-free. They wouldn’t fit!
It was a wee bit crowded on the way to the mullah’s tomb. Imagine this place during the first COVID lockdown. People were confined to their homes, needing permission to leave.
After lunch we visited a fabrics business. they had scarves, table cloths, etc. Wendy bought a blue silk tablecloth made with plant silk from agave (not from worms). Jordan and Hailey modelled turbans and gowns suitable for the Sahara.
Our guide said that Fez with z is a hat, and Fes with an ‘s’ is the city. But it may just be a French/English thing. I noticed that offficial signage in English called the city Fez. In any case, I finally spotted someone in Fes wearing a fez.
More learning about Islam today. It turns out that dogs are considered unclean. They can’t be kept as pets or let into a home, but working dogs are okay (sheep dogs, guard dogs). Cats are okay though. That might explain why we've seen cats everywhere.
By then I’d absorbed as much as I can in a day. We stopped at a large grocery store on our way back to the hotel to buy lunch things for tomorrow. The Carrefour liquor store was open for the first time after Ramadan. It was very busy with locals - we're not the only ones who want a drink. Beer and wine seem cheaper than at home, but liquor a bit more expensive.
The hotel bar was open, but it was very dark and full of smoking locals, so we had a beer and chips on the 4th floor terrace.
After our big lunch we didn’t need much dinner, so we had a zaazaa from a very busy nearby cafe. No custard in this one, but loads of fruit, including bananas, strawberries and apples. And raisins again.
A health update: Leslie now has quite a cough, and Robyn isn’t feeling great either. On our tour today, we were missing Lachie, the youngest member of our group - he was suffering from stomach troubles. I would sure like to avoid getting sick if I can. We went to bed early since we lose an hour overnight when the clocks move forward here, and we have an early start tomorrow.
