Today we tackled Fez on our own and had a much better day. There were two main sites we had not seen on Saturday so we had the taxi drop us off at the Kings Palace.
The kings palace is still a royal palace and not open to the public. The walls are massive and covers almost 200 acres in the center of Fez. It is surrounded by high walls and has 7 gates to enter the compound. Apparently which gate you are allowed to enter by tells you how important you are to the royal family.
Next to the main entrance to the palace is the Mellah which is the old Jewish quarter. Jews have been a significant minority in Morocco up to recent times. In 1950 there were 250,000 Moroccan Jews. The community had been a prominent part of Morocco back to the 3rd century AD. In general throughout history they were segregated in Mellahs in large cities, or in their own villages in the countryside.
The Mellah in Fez is from the 19th century as a large fire destroyed the old Mellah. The new Mellah was established adjacent to the royal palace to give protection to the community. Unfortunately the longstanding community has dwindled to about 1000 people today due to emigration to Israel, North America, and Europe.
After the Mellah we headed down the hill to the Medina for another walk thru. We had not entered thru the main gate of the Medina on Saturday so it was our first stop.
Our first experience in the Medina had not been great so we were looking forward to doing it on our own. We dived in and it was much less crowded on Saturday because while the tourists were out in force, most of the locals are at work today.
We enjoyed a nice stroll thru the souks of the Medina with only one purchase in mind, a tube of superglue to make a repair on François. Google maps works well in the Medina, though you have to trust that the dark 4 foot wide alley it is telling you to turn down is the road it means.
Otherwise it was people watching and lunch on the agenda. Ton tempted me to a Moroccan/western fusion restaurant. I always feel guilty eating hamburgers outside the US, but this time the burger was made from camel meat so it was guilt free. By the way camel meat tastes like beef.
We were half seriously looking for a water clock that is difficult to find. We can attest to the fact that it is difficult to find as we did not succeed in finding it.
We didn’t realize that the Medina was built on a pretty considerable hill until we turned around and started walking back to the gate. It turns out we had a pretty good climb going back.
The day had gone well but it ended on a sour note when we stopped to buy a coffee from a street vendor. We have been in Morocco long enough to know coffee is 15 to 20 Dirham. So I didn’t ask the price before drinking it. When I went to pay the guy wanted 40 per cup. I was unhappy, he could tell, but he stuck with the price when I asked again. I was in a bad position because I hadn’t confirmed the price before taking the coffee so I had no leverage except anger, and to be truthful I was just tired of the place so I paid up. The difference is about $2 per cup from what it should be and that doesn’t bother me, it is the disrespect to rip us off like that with a straight face that does. So once again Fez has left a bad taste in our mouth. The coffee was mediocre also.
