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Fes: the tour around and about

Trying to organise your own tour of Fes is just about impossible even for the most seasoned first world traveller.  We wouldn't be caught dead driving (we might have ended up dead!) and didn't even bother to start investigating public transport.  Through our Riad we organised a guide for a day to take us around those sights too far to reach on foot and too complicated or tricky to find and visit in the Medina ourselves.

Part of the Medina from the outside

Our guide knew literally everybody in Fes and quite a few celebrities beyond (including Mohammed Ali and Michael Douglas - he had the pictures on his phone to prove it).  After taking in a view of the city from outside the walls, we visited some public gardens which were very impressive given the semi arid climate.

After driving past a few monuments and the kings palace (he has many palaces all over Morocco), we visited the Jewish cemetery. Apparently relations between the two religions are quite cordial in Morocco.

Lunch was at McDonalds - this was the guide's, not Samuel's idea.  We suspect he was keen to sample these expensive western delights (paid for by us) including a huge soft drink which can't have sat well with his self-proclaimed diabetes.  Interestingly at Maccas there were many students of both sexes sitting together reading their textbooks, the girls often without headscaves which further reinforced our view (from tourists and locals seen in other locations in Fes) that things are a bit more tolerant in Morocco than sometimes portrayed in Western media.
Only available after nightfall

After lunch we had the more "commercial" part of the tour where the guide takes us to the potters/tannery/weavers and we go through the hard sell.  We spent by far the most time at the pottery place that makes all manner of pots, tagines, cups and tiles not to mention putting the tiles together in amazing mosaics.  We purchased and shipped home a number of plates.



After a while it got a bit irritating.  We visited the leather shop, a lamp shop, a carpetmaker, a textile store, a spice place and finally we pretty much reached the end of our patience when we visited a jewellery store where the owner almost had Elise in tears trying to sell her a crappy piece of jewellery.



To be fair it wasn't all commercial in the afternoon.  Before seeing the leather store we got to see the tanneries and to tour an old Madrassa now closed.  We also got to look inside the door and take photos of two Mosques that were ornately decorated with amazing tilework and see a bit more of the more interesting sections of the Medina.
In the old Madrassa

This was reputedly the narrowest street in the Medina



The tannery has been operating like this for around 1000 years


The beautiful Mosques of Fes

All up it was a very interesting day and well worth the trip even putting up with the shopping hard sell!




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