A Bus Ride and Fez

The next day was a very long bus ride, broken up by a stop at a hotel in Erfoud where we eat a nice lunch and sunbathe. We don't arrive at Fez until almost nine and fall asleep after not so good Spanish food since we're tired of Moroccan food (all hotels have very similar Moroccan tagines for their specialties). The next day we go on a guided tour of Fez. We start out at the palace which is pretty, but similar to many of the other gates we have seen (and will see). We go to the Mellah (or Jewish Quarter) nearby, which has a different architecture than that of the Muslim quarter because it actually has decoration on the outside. A strong feature of all the Muslim architecture in Morocco is relatively plain outsides (you have no idea which houses are the rich ones from the outside) and gorgeous decorated insides, with the most beautiful ceilings. We then head to a synagogue which still has a torah and a hole in the ground leading to the place where the holy water is kept. We load up into the bus and go up to a hill where we can see the entirety of Fez. The city is around the same size as Rabat, but is much older, and was the seat of the Almovid Dynasty. We head to the Medina (which we have a guide for, it's the biggest Medina in the country, and quite windy) and head through the food section (there were lamb's heads!) through the dyer's section (they only use natural dyes: saffron for yellow, henna for red, indigo for blue, mint for green) and end up at the tannery. It is amazing to look down at them tanning hides the old fashioned way, using pigeon's droppings to treat it at first and dying them with natural dyes. Again bargaining ensued and my friends left with leather sandals costing $20. We go to lunch and then head to a place where they weave cloth, which is awesome to watch. We returned to the hotel and just hung around. I really love Fez's Medina. It is a little touristy, but it has so much to watch and is so much more authentic then Marrakech.