We started off the morning by packing up our stuff to move to another room in the riad. Our visit to the Fes medina was going to be guided and hence we had a slightly easier start at 9 am. We polished off a great breakfast, and took the opportunity to walk around the riad.
We walked up to the terrace for the great views over the medina.
Pretty soon it was time to head out. We returned to the lobby of the riad and met up with our guide for the day, Galli. He gave us a general lowdown on how we were going to spend the day, after which we walked out to the car, again through the garden next to the riad.
We started off the day with a visit to Fes El Jdid, or "new" Fes, new only in relative terms of course, built in the 13th century. We first visited the royal palace or Dar El Makhzen for, you guessed it, another set of fabulous bronze doors.
Then it was off for an overview of the medina. As Galli says, these days instead of a panoramic view, one is greeted by a "parabolic" view of Fes, thanks to the profusion of satellite dishes one can see. Watching television is a very popular past time and its not unknown for a single household to have 3 and even 4 satellite dishes.
The green building with the minaret is the Karaouiyine Mosque, one of the oldest and most famous in the Islamic world.
We next visited Art Naji on the outskirts of the medina in order to get a better understanding of the process of zellij making.
The most beautiful and valuable zellij in Morocco comes from Fes. While a big reason for this is the quality of the craftmanship here, another big factor is the quality of the local clay.
After the clay is mixed properly with water, it is shaped on a very rudimentary potter's wheel.
The finished article is glazed and placed in the kiln for the first firing.
The product is then hand painted. There are two levels of artisans working as painters, one are apprentices and the other are the master painters who do larger and more intricate objects and designs.
The article is returned to the kiln for the second firing, after which it is ready for use.
For the zellij work, minute fragments of clay are prepared in upto 1204 different shapes and many different colours and they are then put together like a massive jigsaw puzzle using cement onto the surface that needs to be covered. They were working on a set of columns.....
....and here is the finished result.
We scratched off one item on our buy list after picking up a lovely tagine. It was time to move on, straight into the belly of the beast - the medina.
The Fes medina, called Fes el Bali, is remarkable not just because it is so old, dating back to the 8th century, but because it is very well preserved and hasn't changed all that much over the years. The streets are still the worst maze you can think of, the souks are arranged by product or craft, and the alleys, lanes and dead ends are punctured with non descript doors that can hide sumptuous palaces filled with all manner of untold riches.
As we ventured deeper into the medina, we realised first hand the importance of having someone with us who knew their way around. On our own, we would have been hopelessly lost in 5 minutes flat.
We emerged into a busy part of the medina, a souk for all kinds of produce, from veggies.....
........fruits and spices.......
......meat (ugh!).....
....and fish. Needless to say, for me it was eyes straight ahead and forward march !
After 10 minutes of the sights, sounds, and yes, smells of the produce souk, things got better as we seemed to move seamlessly into the metal working souk.
Fes is still a very religious and orthodox part of Morocco and people, especially those living in the medina, tend to be very conservative. We were careful while taking pictures so as not to offend, but it seems we were not always as tactful as we would have liked. After a few days, we got very good at quickly interpreting the raised finger wagging "NO".
We ended up at the Place El Seffarine square, named after the metal workers who live and work in the alleys around here. Fes is the uncrowned capital of Moroccan craftmanship, and a lot of the skills and art that have gone into all those beautiful doors that I have been drooling over have come from and are still practised in this neighbourhood.
We passed by the Karaouiyine mosque which would soon be open for the mid day prayers.
The mosque is sadly open only to Muslims, but we got a quick glimpse through these doors. It is the site of the oldest university in Morocco, established in the 8th century. It was founded by a woman from the tribe of Kairouan in Tunisia. The prayer hall can hold 20000 people, and the courtyard,just about seen from here, is paved with over 50000 zellij pieces.
Galli suggested that instead of walking through the medina to the Bou Inania medersa, which was likely to be very crowded as midday prayer time approached, we visit the El Attarine Medersa instead, and we concurred.
Named El Attarine, or the medersa for the Spice Sellers, this medersa is considered to be one of the most beautiful examples of Moorish architecture. It was built in the 13th century, and functioned as a muslim school. The student rooms look out through onto the courtyard from the upper floor. The zellij work, alabaster carvings and lintels are absolutely amazing.
We emerged into more chaotic streets and alleys filled with all kinds of things. Some shops had unusual signage, no name, just a huge babouche hanging over the door to let a customer know just what was on offer inside.
One word to definitely learn is "Belek, Belek!" When you hear this being cried out, step smartly aside and make way for the donkey train.
We were now in a completely different part of the medina, that seemed to deal with cosmetic products and jewellery.....
..... as well as huge wedding props such as these seats for the bride and groom that families can rent for weddings.
Time for another stop, at the wonderful Fondouk el Nejjarine, one of the most reknowned buildings in Fes. It used to function as a "fondouk" or caravanserai, providing food and shelter to traders of luxury goods, and is now a Unesco World Heritage Site. The building now houses the Museum of Wood and exhibits objects from all over Morocco.
From the terrace, one gets a great bird's eye view of the medina, as well as the Merenid Tombs in the distance. Its wonderful to step away and look onto all the chaos and madness below, knowing fully well that back into the chaos is where we are headed soon.
Time for lunch, and we stop at a Fes institution named simply Le Medina. With 8 appetisers ( I loved the cauliflower), followed by a delicious couscous, I was ready to face the madness again, this time as a customer. It was time to go shopping in the medina.
We visited many interesting shops - antiques, metal work, even cedarwood, and it was so hard to resist. We caved in and bought our Burkino Faso masks and our granary door from Sub Saharan Mali. As the late afternoon sun struggled to pierce through the labyrinthine streets, we reached the famous Chouwara, the leather tanneries.
The wind was probably behaving well that day, and we did not need to clutch at our sprigs of mint provided, to alleviate our noses from the famous "stink". The views remained as amazing as we had anticipated. Leather has been processed here in exactly the same way since the middle ages.
After caving in yet again and scratching off "Fes leather" off our list, it was time to head back towards our riad. I asked Galli how long it would take, and he said, "picturesque route 20 minutes, short cut 2 minutes". Better to just give up trying to figure this place out I think. I asked him if he was blindfolded and dropped off into some part of the medina, he was sure he would find his way home through the over 40000 alleys, lanes and dead ends. He said 99 % of the time, he could. Beats me how, but thats a great guide.
We got back to the riad exhausted but extremely satisfied at the end of a wonderful day. Galli was a perfect guide, he always made sure that he covered what we wanted to see, and he took us to some great places to shop as well.
We had spent the whole day in her bosom, but were still enamoured, and so we went to the riad terrace to watch the evening sky and the first lights come on, illuminating the medina.
We retired to our new digs at the riad, and shamelessly decided that not only were we not going out of the riad for dinner, we were not even going to leave the room. So a room service dinner, the chicken tagine that Gordon liked so much and french fries and harira for me.
We went to bed after packing away all our Fes goodies as we were checking out of Riad Fes tomorrow and heading off to another part of the medina.
