It’s hard to know where to begin with Fes. It is at once the most interesting, friendly,
dirty, foreign, and incredible city I’ve ever visited. As a citizen of a western nation, I can’t
imagine ever becoming fully comfortable there.
It’s not that it’s not a nice place.
It’s simply that Fes is an entirely different world.
Perhaps nowhere in the world can you travel so few miles
yet so many years. Our trip began with a
mid morning flight out of Madrid. The
flight to Tangier was only an hour. In
fact, only 8.1 miles (13km) separates Southern Spain and Morocco. After landing in Tangier, we had lunch on the
beach and took a train five hours to Fes.
Before I get to Fes though, a word about Tangier. To me, Tangier is Morocco light. There is a beach and a Medina (old walled
city), but neither are worth a visit unless you are traveling on to another city. The beach is picturesque, but dirty, and the
Medina is too commercial. Sure the old
city is still there, but you don’t get the impression that the goods being sold
are made there. You don’t see the workshops
and the craftsmen. Even the riads (guest
houses) and restaurants have a put on feel.
It’s as if they are there so that visitors can experience Morocco in a
way that they expect to experience Morocco, as opposed to the way Morocco
really is.
Leaving Tangier, our train took us 200 hundred miles (321 kilometers)
over five hours to reach Fes. Once at
the train station, we took a cab to the wall of the Medina where we met a representative
of our riad. This was our first
indication of the labyrinth of roads that wind through the Medina, most of
which are so narrow that cars are not allowed within the city’s walls. The
old Medina is one of the largest pedestrian only zones in the world. Because of this, first time visitors to the
city must quickly get used to the calls of “balek” and “andak”. To loosely translate, these both seem to mean
get out of the way in Moroccan Arabic.
These calls are usually followed by either a man with a cart full of
goods or a donkey loaded with anything from chickens to propane gas canisters.
After a five minute walk, we reached our riad. It was located off of the main street of
Talaa Kebira and down a narrow alleyway.
There is no way we would’ve found it on our own. The Riad Al Atik is run by two delightful
French women. There are a total of six
available guest rooms each with traditional Moroccan décor. The colors are vibrant and the tiles
amazing. In addition to the accommodations,
the owners also arranged our transport, booked our guide, and even took us to a
rug shop to help us pick out a carpet.
They also provide an amazing breakfast with traditional Moroccan breads, cakes,
jam, eggs, honey, olives, and fresh cheese.
The central courtyard of the Riad Al Atik.
After breakfast we met our guide, Habib. Having a guide at least one day in Fes is an absolute necessity. As our guide told us, there are over 9000 streets and alleyways in the Fes Medina. Over the course of the day, our guide took us to many of Fes’ most famous sites including the Bab Bou Jeloud Gate (blue gate), Bou Inania Medersa (Koranic school and mosque), Kairaoine Mosque (second largest mosque in Africa), Moulay Idriss Zawiya (tomb of Fes’ founder), and the Kairaoine Tanneries. We also visited several workshops where we saw artisans weaving, making and painting pottery, tanning leather, engraving metal and woodworking. This tour also included a trip to the Merenid tombs that rest above the city. From here there were amazing views of the city. In all we spent nearly eight hours with our guide.
View of the Old Medina taken from the Merenid Tombs.
This is really the only way to see the city. Before we left Spain, I spent quite a bit of time
looking through tour books and researching online. I doubt that I would’ve been able to find
most of what I read about. In Fes, every
corner hides a workshop, a store, or a restaurant. So many times we would find ourselves in a
narrow staircase or alleyway that would lead to an unbelievable site. Whether it’s a courtyard, a souk (market), or
a balcony, we learned to expect the unexpected.
Because of this, a guide is essential.
Our guide Habib with Kelly and the boys. He is explaining the importance of the many fountains spread throughout Fes.
In addition to the advantages in sightseeing, the
guide is also helpful in getting a better price on goods. This is the one aspect that is most
frustrating about Fes. There are no
marked prices on anything. All purchases
have to be negotiated. This is very
difficult for an outsider. The merchants
in Fes are experts at the art of negotiation.
Not once did I leave a shop without feeling that I got fleeced. The key is to decide what you are willing to
pay for something and stick to it. The
one nice thing is that even if you can’t agree on a price, the friendliness of
the people remains. It’s an intense
process, but for us it always ended in a handshake, a smile, and usually a gift
for the boys.
This brings me to another point. The people we met in Fez were as friendly as
any place that I’ve ever visited. They
understand the value of tourism to their country and act accordingly. Whether it was the guide or the shopkeepers,
they were always happy to answer our questions and to show us their shops and
goods. They take pride in what they do,
and that constantly comes through in their attitude and enthusiasm.
View of the Chouwara Tanneries
Our second day in Fes we decided to spend on our
own. We visited a carpet shop to
purchase a small rug, and an embroidery workshop. Embroidery is one of the few trades, outside
of cooking, that is done almost exclusively by women. It is piece work that is taken on by married
women in order to earn extra money. The
work is painstakingly slow. One
tablecloth can take days to weeks to complete.
The stitching is all done by hand so that the pattern on both sides is
identical. According to the shop owner
we spoke to, women can work only an hour or two a day on embroidery work due to
the strain it puts on the eyes. The
result though is beautiful.
We finished our second day by having dinner in a
family home. I hope to write more about
this later, so I won’t say much now other than the hospitality was impeccable
and the food delicious.
On our third morning in Fes we had breakfast and took
a final walk before heading to the train station. Although I don’t think I could ever feel
completely comfortably there, I was able to relax a little and take everything
in. Whether it was the open market with
live chickens, cow hearts, and goat heads, or the passing donkey carrying everything
from herbs, vegetables, or baked goods, Fes is alive in a way that Western
cities aren’t. It was a place both hauntingly
foreign and historically familiar. It’s
like looking into the past while living in the future. It’s truly the most interesting place I’ve
ever visited.
Bab Bou Jeloud
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