Fez

Link to our Riad in Fez
www.riadlecalife.com/accueil.php?lang=en

Inside our Riad

 

Dining room in Riad used if weather is cold or rainy

Kids hanging out in doorway to Riad, Andre had these boys in stitches every time we passed them today, boys will be boys no matter where you are in the world!

Breakfast only starts at 8:30 today, so we can sleep in.  Well we woke up way too early and only fell asleep for a bit after that.  Ahhhhh, it was not because of the noise or call to prayers, it was just not because we could sleep in.

Breakfast was delicious and plentiful. I might gain all the weight I lost in Spain back if this keeps up.  Starting to like this green tea stuff.  Might make it a habit at home, we will see.
 

What a terrible picture of me, but it shows the view from the rooftop terrace where we ate breakfast

Mini buffet at the table

View at breakfast

We met our guide for the ½ day tour of Fez at 9:30 at the Riad.  We sat down and he explained what we were going to see and do.  He says we will take Petit Taxi here and there and all I see is $$$ going out of my pockets.  I tell him our driver will drive us and he says it is not much. So we go with the option of the Petit Taxi.

Off we go, we walk to where the taxis drive by and take one to see one of the most beautiful gate which is next to the entrance to the Royal Palace. Now comes the time to pay the Taxi driver 9 Dirhams.  I am happy with that for a 1 km or more drive, converted to Canadian that is about $1.25.    He says not to take any pictures of the Royal Palace entrance, I am not sure how tourists without a guide would know this, there are no signs posted anywhere. The Alaoutes Gate is just amazing. 

Palace gates, these ones you were allowed to take pictures of

We then walked around the gate and there are guards in uniform so I take a picture.  It is still the Royal Palace and I need to delete them. Someone in plain clothes comes over and I need to show him that I have deleted all the pictures of this gate from the camera, again how would we know, we even have a guide and he didn’t say anything! We are now in the Old Jewish quarters section of the city, most of the Jews left and moved to Israel in the 1960s.  They are the only residents of the city that has balconies overhanging the sidewalks/streets, much like the Jewish section of the city in Seville. Most of the shops here are in the jewelry business and are not open yet.

Jewish quarters with balconies overhanging the streets

Next, another taxi ride to a ceramic cooperative. A bit longer but only about $2 taxi. I think this one had 600K KM on his car. In this city all of the Petit Taxis are red, most of them seem very old, and all of them drive very fast.  We get the grand tour of the ceramic place with the coop guide telling us about all the process and we end up in the store at the end.  Some very nice stuff which they will gladly ship to Canada for us.  We debated buying a tabletop to put outside on the patio but we prefer taking a trip over a tabletop.  They had some nice tagines but still too much as we would need to ship. So no sale today and we move on.

Ceramic artisans at work

Finished product

Taxi again to the Boujloud gate where will start todays walk.  It is also the highest point of our walk today.  Another beautiful gate into the Medina, blue on one side and green on the other.  \
 

Boujloud gate to the Medina, one side blue one side green

 From there we visit a number of places while we walked a labyrinth of streets.  We visited some universities, mosques (most of them we could not enter), market streets selling a number of thing.  The University here claims to be the first University opened in the world.  We also got taken to where people make different things.  Fez is known as an craft or artisan city, many many beautiful trades.  Weavers, Carpets, Alchemist, Embroidery. We ended up only buying 1 thing.  Not much money was made from us for both the store owners and guide who I am sure gets a kickback from every shop he takes us to that we buy from.  

A window for the woman to look out and not be seen

Dyeing clothes, all natural so no gloves needed

Chemists

Snails

 The person we felt the most sorry for was the carpet coop, he had this young man keep taking out and unrolling more and more carpets for us to see, we told them right from the beginning that we were not interested in buying, but he insisted that there was no need to buy but it is part of the experience to see them.  Well it was an experience, we now know more about carpets than before, and we certainly saw some amazing work, but we are not taking any carpets home from Fez.

Starting the display of carpets to buy

Inside carpet sellers

Amazing carpets

We also stopped for lunch around 1:30.  Our guide was the slowest walking person/guide I probably encountered.  We were scheduled for a ½ day tour but we were far from being done.  I think that was his plan walk slow and I will convert the tour to a full day and make more $$$.  The whole guide thing is an experience on its own.  We were happy we had one, but it was funny at times.  Every shop they take you into the guide leaves you with someone to explain their craft, and off he goes with the other guides to sit and drink mint tea or coffee.  For lunch the guide suggested we try the pastille which is a filo pastry stuffed with your choice of things.  Wendy had vegetables and I had pigeon. I tried Wendy’s vegetable pastille, but she would not try my pigeon, and mine was better.   Both were very good.  We were served a variety of vegetable salads before the main course.  There were 7 of them plus olives. All were very good.  The meal also came with house dessert which was whole fresh fruit.   

Lunch, this is the salads only, and just for 2!

After lunch we continued exploring. We did the tannery tour which involves taking you to the third floor of a leather goods store with a lookout over the tanneries.  The store owner guide then explained to us the whole process.  The smell is not bad today but they gave us bunches of mint in case we can’t stand the smell which you can hold up to your nose.  It is much worst in the summer when it is 40 degrees we are told.  You could see the workers in waste deep vats preparing and dyeing the skins of animals.  Wendy tried a leather jacket but it was way too much and the zipper was not great, so we did not try too hard to bargain for it.  The merchant kept telling us he could get it fix and bring it to the Riad for us, but Wendy just did not love it anyway. 

Tannery

White ones are where the fur is taken off, one of the ingredients is pigeon poo!

One thing about having such a slow walking guide is it seemed we were always getting in the way.  These tiny streets are working streets, and men are always going by lugging things on their shoulders, or donkeys with things on their backs, and sometimes it is a caravan of donkeys that you must get out of the way from to avoid being run over.  

Donkey caravan

In the maze of street

 

We parted ways with our guide around 4 where we paid him for a full day tour.  Wendy checked her work email and did a bit of work.  I worked on the blog while enjoying a cold beer. We also contacted our driver and arranged to meet at 6 to go sightseeing again.

Our driver took us to the lookout on the other side of the hill opposite the one we were last night.  Much better as you are not looking as much into the sun.  There is also a graveyard here that runs along the side as you come back down into the city, amazing to see donkeys, sheep and kids playing in the cemetery. 
 

High School Entrance

Another great view of Fez from the opposite side from yesterday

Coffee shop, we mostly only see men in these

He then took us for a drive to what they call New Town.  Not too much to see but still interesting.  We took a street that had a nice park on one side with lots of people walking about. Back at the room around 7:30 for a bit of R&R before supper.

We had made reservations for supper at another Riad which had a la carte menu.  We did not want another 3 course meal tonight but rather something smaller.  I ordered lamb couscous and Wendy ordered beef tagine. Well mine was big enough for 2 of us and Wendy’s was the right size except only meat, tagines normally do not have vegetables but since mine had lots, we were happy with sharing.  We were also served 3 small salads and bread before supper, so once again we left very full.
 

Riad where we had dinner tonight

After supper we decided to take a short walk back to the square and see if anything was happening.  Really nothing going on here, I know when we are in Marrakesh later this week it will be a different story.  We went a short way into the Medina streets as well but most of the shops are closed or closing, and when you aren’t with a guide you are approached much more often so we decided to just turn around and call it a night.    

Merquez sausages, Wendy won't let me try them from the street vendors

Arrived back at the Riad at about 10:30, we knew we were the last ones back as we were the only ones that had a key left to pick up.  When you leave the Riad you are asked to leave your keys at the reception so they know if you are in or not, and when it is OK to lock up everything.  We could hear someone going around after we went to bed turning off the lights and locking up.  Another fantastic day, but we are eager to leave the hustle and bustle of a busy city and head to the middle Atlas Mountains tomorrow.