the fes medina

hey everybody,

i just got back from the weekend in fes and it was such a great experience! we only went for one night, but we had such a good time (me and four other americans). the medina (old city) of fes is the oldest in the country, and it was an almost surreal experience, because once inside its walls you feel as though you've travelled hundreds of years back in time (except for the random toy stores and, oddly enough, the three or four royal air maroc travel agent shops that we saw during our exploring).

we arrived at a youth hostel in the ville nouvelle (new city, built by the french) friday evening. every major moroccan city has both a median and ville nouvelle, and fes' ville nouvelle is one of the richest and most extravagant. still, we managed to spend the night for only $7- free breakfast included. that evening, we walked around for about an hour trying to find food, but amazingly fes seems only to offer tea cafes, none which serve any food. but i have to say thanks in part to my french, i got a waiter at one of the cafes to lead us down a side street to a nice white-table restaurant. dinner was sensational: soups and salads, tagines and couscous, dessert, beer, and mint tea (the traditional end-of-the-meal, or aperitif), plus all the olives we could eat. totaling about $15. 

so we spent that night in a room with five beds, woke up at the call to prayer, and had breakfast. then it was time to head to the medina. we had asked about a guide for the day, and even though i would tend to shy away from the idea (i guess i get kind of embarrassed), hiring a guide was soooo worth it. he was able to show and tell us so much that we would never have seen on our own: sights, histories, anecdotes, and religious significance. plus he was very nice and spoke very good english.

the streets of the fes medina are tiny, cramped, and cobbled. i loved how the whole medina was broken into sections: the food vendors, the artisans, jewelry-makers, fabric/cloth workers, and carpenters. here and there, sticking out are beautiful mosques and mausoleums. but on the whole, everything is covered and dark, so you have absolutely no idea where you are. only if you are able to find a rooftop terrace can you survey the scenery