Morocco: Fes

We took the train from Marrakech to Fes, which was the most comfortable way to travel between the two cities. The French recently redid the train lines or train cars or something like that. The station in Marrakech was new with clean bathrooms that actually had toilet paper and soap! On our seven-hour train ride we passed green hills, with the Middle-Atlas Mountains in the background. Straight lines of cacti had been planted to mark property lines, forming a natural fencing system. We rode through Casablanca and Rabat, both of which appeared to be large cities. In Fes, it took us some time to find the hostel, which was on my lonely planet map. Fewer people spoke English and we had to rely on my shaky French to get us through the Ville Nouvelle. Here, the “new city” was much more rundown than its counterpart in Marrakech. Taxi drivers also hassled us trying to give us rides.

The woman at our hostel told us not to go to the medina at night because there weren’t many restaurants to get dinner and we would get hassled a lot more than if we stayed in the Ville Nouvelle. We took her advice and went out in search of dinner. We each had chicken kebabs which were served with a veggie rice (with tomato, corn, and pepper). We also split a salad. This was not just any ordinary salad. It was pretty amazing. The ingredients were arranged in little piles on a bed of lettuce. It contained: cabbage, beets, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, tuna, hardboiled eggs, and potatoes. Some of the veggies had come out of a can and there was some mayonnaise on top of the salad, but after a day on a train eating nothing but carbs, this was delicious.

The next morning we brought our bags to the bus station (the only place in town to lock them up) and got some crepes there before heading into the medina. The medina of Fes is the largest living medieval city in the world; it’s so big that it’s divided into old old Fes and new old Fes (the Mellah, Jewish section). We had been warned to stick to the main roads and pathways.


While wandering through Fes's streets, I couldn't help but take a photograph of these mannequins, which, to me, are a testament to globalization. No one in Morocco has blond hair like this. It almost sickened me to see that they see blond hair and light eyes as "beauty" or "ideal." Unfortunately, I couldn't talk to any Moroccans on this subject.

First we set off for the Mellah, where we visited the Ibn Danan Synagogue, which is no longer in use. Inside, we were allowed to take photographs and visit the women’s gallery upstairs. It was weird to me to see a synagogue in Moroccan style, with similar carvings and tile work to the palaces we had visited in Marrakech. Probably the most striking thing was that the bema and the ark were across from each other, as they had been in the synagogues I had visited in Venice, but not at all common in synagogue architecture.



We went up to the roof of the synagogue to get a view of the neighboring Jewish cemetery, which was the next destination on our tour of Fes. Many of the graves were unmarked, but some were as recent as 2004. There was a section for Rabbis and one very ornate tomb for a 17-year-old girl, born in Tangier, who was killed because she refused to convert to Islam. Now, 150 remaining Jewish families in Fes live and pray in the Ville Nouvelle. The synagogue, which did have a torah in the ark, is only used for special occasions.

Leaving the Mellah, we walked through some souks (most of the Fes was a gigantic marketplace) to get to the Muslim part of the medina. On our way to the medrasas, we took a detour to visit the tanneries. Fes is famous for its leather industry. We went inside a store, then up to the fourth story to look down into the leather tanning and curing area where teams of men bathed the animal hides in acid washes and natural dyes before hanging them to dry. Because we were so high up, we (thankfully) could not smell the hides.

We found a medrasa we had wanted to visit, but it was closed for restoration. Instead we went in search of lunch. We found a bunch of little hole-in-the-wall places, which were literally holes-in-the-wall. Many of them were so small that they could only fit a two-person table inside. They were designed to sell quick meals to workers in the area. We finally found one that had space inside (it was much larger and even had a “bathroom”). We ordered eggplant in tomato sauce and fried fish. We were served our meals and bread, but were not given silverware. When we looked around, we noticed that people were using their hands or bread to eat. So we rolled up our sleeves (slathered on some Purel) and dug in. The fish was spicy, but well seasoned. It was a challenge to pull bones out of the fish, but it was really delicious anyway. The spicy eggplant tasted good on top of the bread and the meal was really satisfying, especially because it only cost $2 each.

After lunch we went in search of more medresas, entering two. At the Seffarine Medersa, which was built in 1270, we took a “tour.” Men in Fes work as unofficial “tour guides” offering their services outside all tourist attractions. The man at the Seffarine Medersa wouldn’t let us enter without paying him (the equivalent of $1), and then he took us around telling us about the building. The problem was that he spoke no English and Cecilia doesn’t speak French. Luckily, some French guys were on our “tour” also, because they were much better at translating than I was. We went up to the roof of the medersa and looked its minaret as well as those of neighboring mosques. As we were exiting, two boys were leaving their room (the medersa is still in use). They asked (in French) where we were from and I told them that Cecilia and I were American while the boys were French. The Moroccan boys’ eyes lit up: “Americans! Welcome to Morocco!” They completely ignored the French boys. As we were going down to exit the mosque, one of the French boys looked at me and said, “It may be a religious school, but they’re still boys.”

The other medersa we visited was the Bou Inania Medersa. Inside this medersa, we were able to see the prayer room which is still in use. This was interesting because in the other medersas we were either allowed to enter the prayer room if is no longer in use, or we could not enter the room at all. Here, we could not enter the room, but we had a clear view of it and could even take pictures of the mihrab.


This is that prayer room.


Next we climbed a hill to see Fes from above. The medina was enormous: neither of us could fit it into one photo. Afterwards, we walked around the souks shopping and taking some pictures. It was raining so I wasn’t able to take that many photos. We also stopped to have a cup of tea, one of five that day (my throat was hurting, so tea was a good thing). Finding bathrooms in Fes was challenging. Well, ok, holes in the floor were not that hard to find, western toilets were impossible. We used the bathroom at the bus station a few times. Moroccan women must have amazing thighs because they squat over those things several times a day. Toilet paper was completely m.i.a., we had to buy tissue packs from kids selling them on street corners. Forget soap; Purel saved us in this need.


In Fes we saw many more women out than we had seen in Marrakech. We even saw women at nighttime in the bus station, where we had to hang out waiting for our train to leave. (Our train left at 2 a.m., we didn’t wait at the train station because there were no shops or food stalls there and it was pretty disserted in the afternoon when we had arrived.) There were also fewer tourists in Fes. We met some at the medersas and at the synagogue, but it wasn’t like Marrakech where everyone had a digital SLR out and walked around snapping away. Fes was rougher and more of a hassle, we had to rely more on my awful French, men talked to us as we passed them on the streets, and we had to sit in the bus station for five hours because it was a safe place to wait. Even so, I’m really glad we went.