Fez - A City Of Crafts, Mosques and Dead Ends!

Up at 7 ready for a full day tour of Fez.

Breakfast at 8am takes place in a room to one side of the Riad’s five courtyards close to the swimming pool.

After breakfast we meet with Hisham our local guide and set off to explore Fes the oldest city in Morocco dating from the 8th Century AD.

The first stop is the 14th Century Royal Palace – It dates from the foundation of Fes el-Jdid (New Fes), the vast grounds are home to multiple private structures, patios, and gardens, but historically also included administrative offices and government tribunals. It is the largest and oldest palace in Morocco covering 875 acres of which the actual palace covers 220 acres.

From here we continue our tour visiting the Mellah – this is historically Jewish Quarter – Mellah means salt coming from the word salary – many of the residents of this area worked for the King, holding roles in administration and some as ministers including a rabbi who was Minister of Tourism. These days only about 100 Jews remain in the area, many having moved to be business owners in Casablanca.

Fes is an amazing maze – made up of over 9000 alleyways with 40,000 dead ends! It is home to 700 mosques and 2 fortresses and is the biggest labyrinth in the world.

We spend the afternoon exploring the Medina – a word of warning my friends – BELEK! This means watch out and you will hear it often, no cars are allowed in the medina but there are plenty of ponies pulling carts and these ponies wear plastic shoes so you may not always here them!

Everything is available to buy here in the medina – chickens, pigeons and snails to take home and cook, spices to accompany the meal, household goods, food, clothing and just about everything else. It’s an amazing mix of people, animals, smells and sights, so busy and yet so fun also. We visit a bakers where not only do they make their own products to sell but they also bake the dough of those who cannot afford to buy bread from the shop – each person brings their dough in on their own wooden board for cooking and pays a nominal fee for the baking. Within the medina every type of craft can be seen from weaving to tanneries.

We have lunch in a lovely restaurant in the heart of the medina but so peaceful inside, 3 courses plus tea, soft drink and service is just 160 Dirham or £12.50. From here we visit the tanneries and find ourselves very thankful got the mint leaves handed to us on arrival. The tanneries use 14th Century traditions involving pigeon excrement and the smell is absilutely awful. First the hides of sheep, goats, cows and camels are put into pits filled with cow urine, water and salt, this helps to remove flesh and fur and also breaks down the tougher leather. It takes about three days and then the workers can scrap away excess fat and fur. The hides are then moved into other vats filled with pigeon excrement and water. The ammonia in the excrement softens the hides and will help them to absorb the dye that is used to colour them. The colour pits are filled with natural dyes such as saffron (yellow), icobalt (blue) poppy flowers (red), and coal (black). The coloured hides were then hung up to dry on the surrounding rooftops. Later they are sold in the shops – from where you are allowed to stand on their rooftops to witness the process. It is a very smelly 20 minutes or so but definitely interesting and no pressure to purchase anything although the prices were very reasonable. If purchasing a jacket go for goat (softest) or camel (most expensive). For items such as bags and belts we were told camel or goat are preferred. Other points to note – if its real leather it will not burn, on genuine suede jackets the water just runs off, no chemicals are used in these tanneries, that is why they still operate within the city walls and are UNESCO protected. A jacket can be made for you and delivered to your Fes hotel within 4 hours!

From here we return to our beautiful Riad where we have time to change and enjoy beers/photos on the roof terrace. As we have all decided we have had far to much to eat lately we opt out of going for dinner so we ask Adil if we can go to a bar where we can drink but perhaps also have some snacks. We go on a short walk to British Saloon – a bar housed in the former British Consulate – as a group we enjoy beer, wine, pizza and fries before heading back to hotel suite number 8 where we carry on chatting and drinking until almost midnight – its been another great night with great people.