Fes.
I had a good day, and I’m glad I came to Fes, and wouldn’t wanted to have missed it, but it’s also been my least favorite place by far. I walked about 7 or 8 miles today, for about 7 hours, maybe 8, in weather that was 98 or 99 degrees by noon, and around 103 degrees by about 3 pm. That’s hotter than it was in Saigon, and it was more humid, or at least it felt like it. My arms were glistening with sweat much of the day, and I don’t usually sweat that much unless really working hard. I liked it, though. The heat, that is.
I started my walk in a wide open plaza just a few minutes from the riad, near where the leather tanneries are located, although from there I quickly moved into the alleys and narrow covered streets that make up the heart of the medina, and seem endless.
The medina here is very old, and much older than the others I’ve visited, with its layout, organization, and structure dating back to the 8th and 9th centuries when the city was founded and later expanded, and many of the buildings in the medina range in age between 150 to 500 years, and some are older. And they look it. It’s as though Shakespeare’s London (and that’s sort of new, in comparison) still looked like that, or London’s East End still looked the way it did in Dickens’ time (and that’s even more recent), and I don’t mean in a good way.
The medina is an incredible place, with a rich and long history, and although there are many open spaces and areas, it’s most known for its narrow alleys and its indoor covered streets, which is where most of the market (souk) is. That labyrinth of over 9,000 alleys and narrow lanes, indoor and outdoor, dominates the medina, and is what visitors are most confronted with when they visit the old walled city, as I was yesterday.
That maze of narrow and old streets is not an inviting place at all, the polar opposite of charming. I didn’t particularly like being in its covered and narrow streets or its open alleyways, and was glad each time I left its narrow and grungy alleys, as well as its covered streets, where most of the marketplace is, spread, throughout the entire medina, which is large. The streets and alleys are narrow, even along the widest indoor streets, and sometimes especially narrow, and the outside streets and alleys are often dark, even in the daylight. I wouldn’t particularly want to be walking some of them at night.
That’s not to say that the medina isn’t an interesting and fascinating place, which it is. But that’s historically and culturally, rather than for its intrinsic charm and good looks. It’s squalid, dilapidated, unpleasant, or at least that central part of it that’s all covered streets and alleyways.
Now, having said all that… don’t get me wrong. The medina is such an old place, it’s like walking through history. In addition, the market, the souk, is just what you expect, and in that sense not unlike similar markets all over the world, with goods of every kind and variety, like leather goods, rugs and carpets, herbs and spices, foods, figs and olives, ceramics, brass and copper, traditional North African and Moroccan clothing, and all the things that Morocco is known for around the world. The indoor market is not laid out like a traditional market though, and is instead a marketplace of shops lining both sides of this labyrinth of endless narrow indoor, and sometimes outdoor, streets and alleys. Sometimes there are tiled streets in the covered market that stand out as different and far nicer and more elegant, although the shops there seem to be the same, although perhaps these are the high rent streets for shops that are doing well. Regardless, they are not the norm.
Although I spent much of the day in the medina and and just outside of its gates, I also visited Jnan Sbil Gardens in the morning, the oldest public park in Fes, which is just outside of the western edge of the medina, and some time there, walking and sitting outside, and enjoying the park. Although its central fountain was in full swing, except for one small section, the park streams were dry, and its small pond was also largely dry. I guess due to the weather, although isn’t it always hot and dry here?
After leaving the park, I walked around the area outside of the medina, near where the the park is located, and walked around the old fortified walls of the medina and its many gates (babs), eventually passing back into the old city through Bab Bou Jeloud, the Blue Gate.
As I said, the medina isn’t all covered streets and markets and open air alleys and narrow streets. There are also wide open spaces and plazas and regular streets within the medina, but the streets and shops and businesses along them are often worn out. Again, this is an old town, with old streets and buildings. Nevertheless, those open areas are a welcome change after being in the labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys, which appear similar to one another, one turning into another, a maze of thousands of similar alleys and streets. In that warren, Google and Apple Maps actually did a pretty good job of negotiating them and getting me from one place to another, but they nevertheless had difficulties with all the twists and turns, and sometimes lanes and alleys that just stopped or were closed off.
In some parts of the medina, both indoor and outside, there are concentrations of more specialty shops, like the myriad of shops selling leather goods near the Chouara leather tannery district of the medina, for instance, or areas like Place Seffarine, an open air plaza where brass and copper goods are the specialty and stores are concentrated together. There are all sorts of shops in the souk, butchers, fresh produce, nuts and dates, olive specialists, and many spice and herb shops, in the smell of the spices is intense as you near the shops. The medina souk is a cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells. It’s just not a physically nice environment, at least from my perspective. I found it oppressive, and was aways happy to be back in the open. It’s one thing to be walking through history, but on the other hand, would you really want to walk through the filthy and poorly maintained streets of Shakespeare’s London?
For my walk, I pretty much followed an itinerary that I mapped out online, as well as just meandering around and visiting places that caught my interest between recommended stops, which sometimes neither Google nor Apple Maps could find. But I’d pretty much seen everything recommended by mid-afternoon, with little more to actually see, other than visiting museums and touring other historical buildings in depth, which would have been a far deeper dive and given me much more information and history, or doing serious shopping for the things Morocco is known for, or going into the larger surrounding city outside of the medina (although the Internet didn’t have a lot to offer in terms of must see things, sights, and attractions in Fes). From the little I saw of the main city, outside of the medina, coming in on the bus, it looks relatively modern, clean, and well laid out, but offering little in the way of tourist attractions. The city seems like a functional working city, with this incredible huge (but I thought largely unpleasant and uninviting) medina at its center, and its main attraction.
There are lots of tourists and visitors here, but the city doesn’t particularly seem tourist friendly or focused, despite the fact that it’s clearly a tourist economy, at least in the medina. Although there are occasional signs and plaques giving the history of an area or building, these are rare, and some are not marked at all, despite their historical importance. For instance, even though I visited the Mellah, the old Jewish Quarter, you wouldn’t know it. It just seemed like another crowded and business-as-usual street, with old and poorly maintained buildings (although in the photos they look far better than they actually are), with nothing obvious to mark the area , give any history, or distinguish it any way. It was just another busy section of a busy area in the medina. While there, I also visited the Aben Danan synagogue, built around 1680, although I didn’t go inside (in hindsight, I’m sorry I didn’t). Still, even though it’s an important part of Fes’ history, and the history of the Mellah, there’s not a single sign pointing the way to the synagogue.
On the other hand, there are lots and lots of men who are visitor savvy, and constantly seeking an opportunity to make a buck, or actually a dirham. They are friendly and appear interested in you, but their goal is actually having you pay for their services in some way, including, in my case, old hippy that I apparently appear, multiple offers to get me hashish. That really took me back to my year in the merchant navy when I was 18, when at every port I visited I was approached with multiple offers of hash, which was actually what sparked my interest in the stuff in the first place.
Again, it’s not that these guys were overly assertive or aggressive in their manner, or insistent or persistent, but the only way to deal with them, and there were lots and lots of them, was to politely but firmly say no thanks, and keep walking without any further engagement, even though that seems rude. Of course, this describes Hassam in Casablanca very well, who did a stellar job of pulling me in.
By mid-afternoon, around 3 or 3:30, I was pretty much done with my walking tour. I took the unusual step (for me) of getting a sandwich from one of the many street food vendors, partly to kill some time, but also because I definitely wanted to sit down, get out of the very hot sun, as by now the temperature was about 103 degrees, have a drink, and think about what to do next. The sandwich was “standard” street food sold everywhere, meat stuffed thickly into thick and soft pita bread, although I’m not actually sure what the meat was, but it was good. It wasn’t lamb or pork (either of which would have been good), and I think it was spiced ground beef. Anyway, it was stuffed with meat and very tasty, and of course very inexpensive.
I really had run out of things to do, and didn’t want to visit museums or pay entry fees to enter and tour various ancient buildings. I had thought about taking a free street walk this afternoon, as I’ve done in many other cities, but by now I felt a little too tired and hot to take a three-hour walking tour, and by now I had missed most of them anyway. I also thought about taking a talk to a nearby mountain viewing point above the town, but as the round trip was about five miles, and of course mostly uphill on the way there, I definitely wasn’t up for it by that point. Instead, I decided to just take a slow walk back to the riad (if I could find it), and google maps took me on a walk around the outside of the Medina, as I suppose that was the closest as the crow flies way to go, although eventually bringing me back into the medina and that maze of streets and alleys again.
I did find the riad, although did have some difficulty in the final few hundred yards, figuring out just which narrow and run down alley it was in, despite its sumptuous, lovely, and expansive inside space. It just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by its cover. But I was not ready to re-enter the sterile environment inside, quiet and windowless. I thought about looking for the insane and surreal street market I passed through yesterday when trying to find the Sapphir Bleu, as I didn’t take any photos of that crazy scene, which looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, but I was just too bushed by then. .
Instead, I found a pretty good spot in the shade just outside of the medina alleyways, in a relatively new and modern open plaza, where I could sit and relax, and I actually wrote quite a bit of this blog then. After a while, I was back on my feet and walked maybe another mile or so, back into those enclosed alleys and lanes, looking at the leather shops near the tannery district, which was right in the area I’d been sitting, and from where I started my walk this morning.
Finally, I headed back to the riad, and didn’t go out again. While in my room, I was amazed to hear what sounded like rolling thunder, which it was, followed by a full fledged rain storm, lasting maybe 45 minutes, I guess the result of today’s very hot and humid weather. It is unusual for rain at this time of the year, though. I hope there’s not more of the same tomorrow.
I enjoyed my day, but happy to be leaving tomorrow. I’m certainly glad to have come, but Fes was definitely was not a high spot, despite its interesting and historical medina. I’ll catch a morning train to Meknes, a city of about 700,000 about 45 miles east, and hope to spend the day there visiting the ancient ruins in Volubilis, just outside of the city, as well as Meknes itself.
Actually, post script, I did go out after dark, around 11 pm, to get something to eat. Is it safe out there at night? It seems to be, but it could just as easily be unsafe for a foreign traveler, and especially in even more remote and narrower, and darker, parts of the medina. However, I didn’t stray too far from the riad, and just grabbed a snack, and was very happy to be able to easily find my way back to the riad, despite the myriad of twists and turns, even over the equivalent of just a few blocks.
Good night.