We awoke this morning to a lovely day in Fes.
Views from our riad's rooftop terrace:
More photos of our riad:
We stayed at Riad Ahlam; Ahlam means dreams...I think.
Breakfast was intense.
They just kept bringing food. Most of it was carb based by as you can see there was a lot of food.
Last night's alley in the day light.
Said took us to meet our guide for the day, Mohammed (or Rami because everyone is named Mohammed - traditionally the first born son is named Mohammed in Arab Muslim families) who would give us a tour of Fes's medina. The medina is the old part of the city, it just means "city" but is now used to refer to the old part of a town. Our first stop is the royal residence in Fes. You cannot tour the palace itself, but it has a pretty fancy gate you can ogle.
Detail of one of the smallest doors. It's still a fairly large door though, don't be fooled.
Nice knockers!
There are seven doors to the golden gate (actually carved bronze).
These seven doors represent the seven days of creation.
Bab Makhzen in all its glory. The gates were built in 1960. The doors are cleaned with an orange citrus that is inedible, but really good for cleaning brass and for pickling olives.
Details of the mosaics around the doors.
This is the courtyard in front of the golden gates.
It kind of bothered me that the road didn't line up with the central door. Oh well.
This is part of the Jewish quarter of Fes. As you can see they have balconies and outside facing windows, because Jewish women don't need to be covered in public. You can also see how, for the most part, the shops are on the bottom and the residences are above. For the Muslim families, the house or riad, is entirely separate from where their shops are.
Things for sale. Mostly beans I think.
I find this sort of display very aesthetically pleasing.
Something about all the different things organized in their own containers or something.
This is still part of the Jewish quarter. All the gold, silver, and jewelry were sold here. It still is mostly, although there aren't many Jewish people living here anymore. They have moved to the nicer newer parts of Fes.
We took a quick trip out to a guardhouse for a view of Fes before delving into the medina.
Bab Riafa, the gate for motorized vehicles to enter the medina.
We visited Borj Nord, which is Fes's northern fortress.
It was built in the late 16th century and has lovely views of the medina.
Here you can see Bab Riafa.
Woo! Fes! Woo!
Also we saw some olive harvesting on the hillside below Borj Nord.
I searched the internet for a good 10 minutes and can't figure out what kind of flower this is.
If you know, please inform me. I think it's pretty.
A little garden at the Borj.
Having surveyed the medina, we are now ready to explore its depths. Or so we think.
Bab Boujloud, the north gate to the medina. It was built in 1913. It's the perfect gate for Dan and me as it is blue on one side and green on the other. Those are our favorite colors respectively. In the middle you can see the minaret of Bou Inaia Madrasa - more on this later.
No donkey parking.
This is a market area and probably one of the wider alleys of the medina.
The medina is narrow and crazy (in a good way) and is full of beautiful things, even this carved wood up above.
We will take a break (so soon, I know) from the medina's alleys to explore Bou Inania Madrasa.
First things first. Madrasa is the Arabic word for any kind of educational institution.
It does not have to be religious.
The Bou Inania Madrasa was built sometime in the middle of the 14th century.
EVERYTHING is decorated. Except for that bit right there, but....it's almost negligible compared to all the other bits that are decorated.
There's even a little stained glass here hidden among the plaster carvings.
This is inside a classroom off the main courtyard.
This is the only madrasa in Fes to also have a minaret because it also served as a congregational mosque. This is the area from which the Imam would lead the congregation.
The common decoration pattern is as follows:
Wood carving at the top, plaster carving in the middle, mosaic tiling pattern on the bottom.
Here you can also see the little windows of the upper story.
These rooms were sometimes used to house students.
Double doors are very common.
The big doors are open when the weather is hot and the little doors are used when the weather is cold.
Details of the stained glass in a classroom.
Details of one of the wooden doors.
Some of the wood here is over 600 years old.
Some of the wood here is over 600 years old.
This cat has found a quite place in the midst of the medina's hubbub.
As we continued through the medina, we found that someone from Naples had been here.
Or someone is a fan of one or any of these people.
Things for sale everywhere!
Maybe because we were with guide, but we did not get aggressively harassed to shop and buy things like other tourists have warned about.
This is a public fountain for washing before entering a nearby mosque.
Rami took us to see a riad that was being restored.
It's going to take $3 million USD and take about five years to complete.
I do not recall when the original riad was constructed.
A painted wooden ceiling. The center portion has been redone but the rest is original.
A wall of mosaic and plaster work.
You can make out along the bottom how they are integrating electricity into the room.
The room of the aforementioned ceiling and wall.
I think this would be used as a dinning room space.
This room will be a bedroom.
It also had a pretty fancy wood painted ceiling.
These are the windows of the dinning room.
There is a balcony on the upper level to look out and down into the central courtyard.
Artistic pigeon!
Also you can see the hinges for the large doors.
We learned about brass stamping/carving here. This gentleman's father carved the doors for the golden gate. The man working works without a pattern or template. He just stamps along making beautiful designs. I would totally screw up spacing or go off to the side or something.
We stopped briefly at a small tannery. Here they mostly had sheep hides. They removed the wool and then set about the tanning process. It did not smell good.
This guy is working in a tub of I don't know what with the hides. It still did not smell good.
Rami took us to see a more modern household.
It is still fairly decorated but there is only a little plaster carving.
This courtyard has been closed off from the outside so it can be used more easily year round.
The first floor had the central courtyard area and two side rooms. All were full of couches/cushions.
I'm confidant that had we tried to explore the medina on our own we would have gotten horribly lost.
There's a cat in that tree! Also wood carvings and giant chairs!
I think this says "Welcome," but I could be wrong.
In Fes, Pacman eats tajine not pellets.
The medina is commonly shaded and it is comfortably cool.
The Kairaouine (I found 3 or 4 different spellings of this, so I just picked one) Mosque is the second largest in Morocco (after the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca). It is also part of the University here, which claims to be the world's oldest university.
The Kairaouine Mosque was founded around 857 by Fatima Al-Fihri.
The outside walls and doors are decorated in the standard mosaics and carvings.
The ceilings have detailed painted/carved wood and colorful carved plaster designs on the walls leading up to them.
This is a prayer wall for the Mosque. It's beautiful.
We left the Mosque and went to explore more of the medina. This shop has every color of silk thread you could ever want. People will purchase the silk thread to make garments and to create embroidery on those garments.
This man sells silk embroidered and braided belts.
Some are done by hand and some are machine made.
A comparatively simple, but still decorated and beautiful entrance.
We climbed to the roof top terrace of a carpet shop to see the roof tops of the Kairaouine Mosque and University. It's so green in a sea of beige.
The carpet shop is housed in a 13th century riad.
Artsy photo of my "simple door" from the carpet riad.
The plaster carvings leading to the ceiling are bright and lovely.
There's a closer photo of them in the carving collage at the end of this post.
One of the side rooms of the riad. So many carpets!
A lovely wood carved ceiling with fun lamps.
Looking through a doorway into the central courtyard. The walls now display large carpets.
Of course this ended up being a carpet sales pitch, but the riad was beautiful and we learned a bit about the different carpet patters. This one is and Arabic pattern.
This one is a Berber dowery pattern.
This is pattern is referred to as Berber Picasso.
Sooooo many carpets!
Interior window. The ironwork is still beautifully geometric.
A couch in the inner courtyard.
More of the inner courtyard.
And some less intricate but still interesting mosaics on the floor.
Mom ended up buying a carpet. The carpet king told us he'd make sure we had paperwork because "The words they fly, but the print it stays."
He also informed us that we only had to pay for one side, the other side was free.
ALL the copper things!
Most things in the medina are transported by donkey.
This man was kind enough to let us take his and his donkey's photo.
We stopped off to learn about Moroccan embroidery. Like the brass stamping, they do everything by hand, without a pattern or template. I would still go crooked or misjudge spacing.
The ceiling in the embroidery shop. I like it, but I'm also partial to green.
I just love these doors. How could you not?
Our next stop was to learn about cactus silk. It turns out that the interior fibers of the agave plant are very strong and silk like and you can use them to make thread which is then used in looms to make scarves and blankets and such.
One of the weavers wrapped me and Dan up in scarves.
A variety of colors and sizes of things made from the cactus silk.
This man worked so fast.
You really couldn't see what he was doing; the shuttlecock just flew back and forth.
Our next stop was the Choura Tannery. It smelled awful. I was glad I had a scarf to breathe through.
This tannery is massive.
It was built in the 11th century and leather goods are still produced in mostly the same manner.
I can't imagine what these people smell like at the end of the day. These first vats are a mix of water, limestone, and pigeon guano or cow's urine. The smell of this is sharp, acrid, and rancid.
The other part of the tanner is currently under construction renovating the color vats.
This side would have smaller dye vats of various colors. I'm a little sad we couldn't see that.
Mom thought the construction workers looked like Doozers.
These hides are hanging out to dry.
At some point they all get converted to goods such as these bags and purses. We looked around a bit at the merchandise, but nothing struck my fancy. The owner gave me a little leather coin purse for free though, so that was nice.
Our last stop of the day was out to a mosaic factory.
They predominantly do custom mosaic orders, but it was still interesting to walk around.
Mosaics are assembled face down. Who knew?
For reasons that are unclear, mosaic shapes are still cut out by hand. Ceramic tiles are fired and glazed and then whatever shape is needed is outlined on the tile and cut out with a chisel.
All sorts of shapes!
A spiderweb design mosaic table.
The factory also did a little bit of pottery.
Fountain mosaics like this are common for personal homes. These mosaics are actually backed by a fiberglass type material to make them lightweight and flexible for shipping and stability.
This cat thinks the fountain is a bed.
After our tour of the medina we headed back to the riad for dinner and to pass out.
It was a long and busy day.
But first, Fes at night from our riad's rooftop.
And Fes stars. Did you know stars have colors?
A note about mosaics. A patter you see over and over again is "the spider web."
It represents one of the stories of the prophet Mohammed. It is as follows:
A long ago, prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) and his companion Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), were traveling to the city of Al-Madinah. The prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) had been invited to become the leader of the people in the city of Al-Madinah. The prophet had been invited there due to his wisdom, trustworthiness and faith in Allah. While traveling, the prophet and his companion were told that some men from Mecca were after them to harm them. These man who were looking for the prophet believed in many gods and images and were known as polytheists. They were very upset at the prophet because the prophet taught the people that there was only one God worthy of worship, Allah. The prophet and his companion took shelter in the Cave of Thawr. While inside the cave, a spider had spun a web across the entrance of the cave. At that time the men from Mecca were getting closer and closer to the cave. When they arrived at the cave they only saw the spider's web at the entrance of the cave. They thought that no one could have entered the cave because the spider's web had not been broken. At that time the prophet was standing in prayer while Abu Bakr watched. Abu Bakr then said to the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him), "Those are your people searching for you. It's not for myself I am sad, but because I might see something terrible might happen to you". The prophet Replied "Abu Bakr don't be afraid God is with us". The people from Mecca then left without causing harm to the prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him). Allah had protected our prophet and his companion from harm once again. Afterwards our prophet arrived at the city of Al-Madinah where he and Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), were welcomed by all the people there. This journey that prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) took is known as the Hijrah.
Anyway, this concludes our adventures in Fes.
