Thursday (Fès)…

The Medina of Fès assaults every sense around every turn. And frankly, it can be overwhelming and off-putting. But to dismiss it would be to overlook its history and meaning and the vibrancy of human life it houses.


We started our day with a fantastic breakfast on one of the rooftop terraces at our riad. Morning clouds began to break up as we ate. We dined on fresh fruit and yogurt. Bread and Moroccan pancakes with around seven toppings, including honey, herbed Moroccan goat cheese, and a few fruit spreads. Top this off with hot coffee and we were raring to go.


At the advice of our hostess, we decided to start our medina tour at the top of the hill and wind our way down to end at the riad later in the day. (The media lies within a bowl nestled between a couple of hills.) Armed with a crude map, we walked to the nearby carpark to hail a petit taxi. Taxis everywhere…nobody seemed interested in picking us up. We finally found a taxi and whisked us quickly up the hill, pointed us to our medina gate, and accepted our 15 MAD. We discover later that we were dropped off at the wrong gate…which made map orientation a challenge. 🙂


In we went. And what a scene we found!


The medina has areas that specialize in different products. In this case, we entered in a food market area…it was like a farmers market merged with a mosh pit. People were everywhere. Piles of colorful vegetables on burlap sacks. Fresh and dried herbs. And meat…lots of it…alive and dead…or soon to be dead. I even spotted a woman tightly clutching two pigeons by the wings, off to butcher them. This was a place for locals, and nobody seemed to notice that we existed.

The further down the media we ventured, however, the more desirable we became. Food stands turned to tiny shops filled with wood, leather, or metal items. All the classic things you would envision in an Arabic souk: finely crafted wooden boxes, colorful leather ottomans, ornate metal lamps. The catch was that if you paused for a minute to admire an object, a persistent shopkeeper would descend on you to start a negotiation. No window shopping here!


A very pleasant exception was an elderly man, seated on the floor of a tiny dark shop. He held a block of rough wood in his hand, and was using a foot-spun lathe to carve the block into tiny toy tops. He stopped and proudly showed us his boxes and other fine objects. He showed us clippings from magazines and foreign newspapers citing his artisanship. And he asked us to take his picture. To us, he was trying hard to be an ambassador in a world totally foreign to us. We bought a box…he threw in one of his tops. He smiled…and we walked on…further into the medina.


Back to our map. One of the challenges of starting at the wrong place on a map that is poorly detailed anyway is that you try to force streets and directions to correspond…you force fit reality on fiction. And you get lost. Which, frankly, is to be expected in the medina. No matter how hard you try, you will miss a turn, or lose sign of a colored route sign you were following. There are very few “landmarks” in the medina. There are three major mosques–one of which will hold 20,000 people (!!!)–and yet you barely notice them as you pass by, because they are simply doorways along narrow streets next to other doorways. There are no grand squares or manicured gardens around these mosques to make them stand out.


We happened upon a building being restored under some UNESCO world heritage program. We ventured in and discovered a hidden work of art being slowly transformed. This building seemed to have been used as a school until recently…chalkboards and rickety desks sat unused. Beautiful tile work and carved plaster doorways were being restored by diligent workers. Two stories above, two wood craftsmen toiled on scaffolding to strip, sand, and varnish intricate woodwork along the top of the interior courtyard. We climbed narrow stairs to the roof for an unexpected view of the medina around us. We cautiously paid the requested 20 MAD upon exiting…hopefully the money went where it was supposed to.


We finally made our way to the Blue Gate (which was our intended original starting point for the day), one of the famous gates in the medina wall. At this point, the sun was beginning to beat down more insistently, and we were beginning to feel the strain of the constant offers of “assistance,” or helpful kids telling us not to turn right or left: “there is nothing in that direction…only out”. So, we found our way to the Riad Fès, the top rated hotel within the medina. The riad is stunningly beautiful with multiple courtyards, terraces, and fountains. A true oasis. We had a couple of beers and contemplated how to possibly find our way back through the medina.


Fast forwarding a couple of hours, as the sun sunk lower, we had definitely had our fill of the medina for the day. Annoying helpers began to change their tone to more of belligerence. (One particularly aggressive “guide” implied that we had said we wanted him to help us…and badgered us for money.) Polite replies of “no merci” seemed to agitate people. Particularly as we neared the tanneries, an area of the medina that must be very popular since at every turn someone would walk up to us and tell us the direction to said tannery. It must work on somebody, but I can’t imagine who. At one point we exited the medina at the wrong gate (thinking we were on the north side only to learn from a kind German couple we were on the south side). Once again trying to hail a taxi to no avail. But we carried on…circling and re-tracing persistently…swatting off the helpers.


We finally prevailed finding our riad thanks to the age old way of navigation…using the setting sun to orient us to west vs east. Ah…back to our very own oasis.


A couple of beers later and a lovely breeze on the rooftop terrace, and we were laughing about the day. We re-visited the things we had seen for the first time in our lives. And we put some of the less-desirable things out of our minds. As the sun set, a call to prayer momentarily broke the otherwise calm evening.


Dinner at the riad was another fantastic reminder of the beautiful flavors of Morocco. A chilled local rosé from Volubulis with dinner, and then cappuccinos on the roof. A peaceful way to wrap up an eventful day.