Our tours started at 9:00 am today. The first stop was in the “new” Fez which was built in the 13th century. Here we went to the Jewish quarter and visited a synagogue. We then walked to the royal palace. Fez is one of the four imperial city’s of Morocco. Unlike the UK, we can’t go inside the palace so we took pictures of the outside. As the doors are brass, there were men polishing the doors.

We then headed to the top of a tall hill to get a panoramic view of the three cities of Fez (modern, new and old). For some reason I hadn’t connected the city name with the hat, however, when we got to the top of the hill there were individuals selling the Fez hats. Per Wiki, the hat was named after the city.

From there we went to the old city, which was founded in the 9th century. We first walked to the University of Al-Karaouine and went inside. The mosaic tile, carved wood and decretive stucco was stunning! From here we walked through the many alley ways. Each section is called a souks. The sections represent different things to purchase. They had dresses, cloth, jewelry, meat, fish, produce, leather, rugs, various items made from wood and metal and on and on it went.

We stopped in a house to see the inside and to see the barber rugs. The house was beautiful. Each house has two levels. In the winter they live upstairs as heat rises and in summer they stay downstairs as it is cooler due to the thick walls and tile.

We then went to lunch. Lunch started with appetizers of various small items like hummus, eggplant, carrots, potatoes, some filo stuffed with almonds and cinnamon. The main dish was meatballs in tomato sauce and vegetables cooked in tangines. The tangine is the pot the food is cooked in vs what is inside of it.

After lunch we continued our walking tour. Starting with a tannery. They gave us mint to smell as we heard about the process and saw them tanning the hides. They sold some beautiful jackets! They also had bags, shoes, wallets and belts.

We then went to a fabric store where men were weaving with a horizontal loom. The rugs we saw were created by women using a vertical loom. Strange that men and women make different items with different tools yet every one uses the same bathroom. Anyway, I digress… at the fabric store they had scarves, table cloths and table runners. Some of the pieces were large enough to use as a bed spread. As I looked at the beautiful bedspread, I could see Porter digging the beautiful fabric in a ball so he could lay in it. So no fabric for me.😊

Our last stop of the day was at a pottery store. They showed us the intricate process of making the tangine clay pots and mosaic tables as well as painting the various pottery pieces. It is a true art. For the tables, one person draws out each mosaic piece on a tile and then rough cuts them with a hand chisel. Another person then finishes the pieces and the third person then assembles the small pieces for the table top upside down. He can’t even see what it looks like until he has laid out all the pieces and poured the concrete on the back of the pieces to finish the table. Once it is all dry, then it is flipped over to show the design. Crazy! They also had various bowls, plates, cups, etc that individuals were painting by hand.

Here are some pictures from the day.

Jewish quarter synagogue royal palace shoes!

Blacksmith

Fez

Tannery

Lunch

Mosaic/ ceramics store