Let's Talk Fes

Welcome to Fes! This is the Blue Gate, or as it's known to locals, the Bab Boujloud. The Blue Gate was built in 1913 by the French, and it takes us into the medina, believed to be the world's largest car-free urban area. It's enormous and although we walked and walked and walked, I know we only covered a portion of it. Our riad (hotel) was just outside the medina, so we got to walk through the Blue Gate numerous times during our stay.

Now through the Blue Gate, Peter and Jessa are leading us into the medina. As I mentioned the other day, the medina is a working city. The Fes medina is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's been around for hundreds of years (Fes was founded about 1200 years ago) and is home to most of the residents of the city.

Here's an overview of the city of Fes. Confession time: until a few years ago I'd never heard of Fes. Please don't judge me, but my knowledge of Fes began with the TV show The Gilmore Girls. In one of the first episodes, Rory tells her grandfather that she plans to visit Fes someday, and it becomes a running commentary between them. That's how Fes got on my radar screen. And good that it did. Fes was my favorite part of our trip.

As I mentioned the other day, there are four imperial capitals in Morocco. The current capital is Rabat, but since the ninth century Fes has been the capital of Morocco several times, most recently from 1727-1912. There's still a palace in Fes (built in the 17th century), and when he's in town it's where the King stays. (And when we're in town, it's where we take a group picture.)

And here's the entrance to the palace again, minus the tourists.

In addition to having an enormous and fascinating medina, Fes is also the place to go in Morocco to see artisans at work (and to buy what they've made). Whether it's leather, metal, weaving, ceramics, tile, or wood ..... Fes is the place to go. It's too much to touch on them all in this post, so for now I'll focus on one type of handcraft that's made in Fes: leather. Fes is the place for leather in Morocco. We visited the Tanning Quarter and got to see the tannery work in action. (And smell it too: pigeon dung is used in the tanning process and the place smells terrible if you're not used to it, so we tourists are given sprigs of mint to hold over our noses to help tamp down the disgusting smell.) Above is leather tanning in process. You can see the yellow blots ..... those are hides that are drying. Those square pools in the background are lime baths, which is one of the first steps in the tanning process. (And also the most caustic.)

The brown baths on the right side are for dying. They told us that all the leather is dyed with plant-based dyes. Various leather houses own their own dying pools. The workers walk between the baths constantly. (If it was me, I'd be sure to fall in.)

We viewed the tanning from above, with the help of a local guide.

You can buy leather goods all over the city, including in a gigantic shop adjacent to the tannery. This picture doesn't do it justice, as there were so many leather items in room after room. And it was all beautiful. I tried desperately to find something to buy, but nothing spoke to me. Jessa, however, bought a poof (an ottoman made from leather). She also put on display her expert negotiating skills and got exactly the price she wanted.