Before leaving Marrakesh, we visited the Bahia Palace. It was built by the Grand Vizier for his personal and harem’s use. It was supposed to be the best one of its time, so they shipped in craftsmen from around the country to create the super ornate wood, tile, and gardens.
This ceiling was cool because it was geometrically textured and painted.
Priscilla put together a few collages of the tiles we’ve been finding throughout Morocco.
We finally left the Medina to check out a garden in the New City, after picking up train tickets for the next day. It was pretty extensive and definitely worth the 1.5 hour walk (yes, we could have taxied but where’s the fun in that)!
One of our last days in Marrakesh, we decided to have a lunch of different olives, bread and mint tea. We were over-excited and ended up with around 2 lbs of olives.
The Moroccan bread (khobz) is a very major part of their diet. There’s a khobz merchant on every street, and they sell for 1 Dirham (~$0.10) each. They have an amazing thin crust and come in several varieties.
We arrived in Fez after an all day train ride and got a bit lost trying to find our Riad. The Medina streets in Fez remind us a lot of old Delhi; narrow, winding, and often don’t show on google maps. We turned down all the people trying to ‘help’ or ‘guide’ us and eventually found it. The Riads in all of the Medinas are a welcome oasis from the surrounding craziness. It’s a different world inside vs. out.
Fez was definitely more hectic, more smells, more everything compared with Marrakesh. It was amazing to see the vegetables, animals, sweet shops, stores, and chaos of daily life happening in the medina. We’re glad we decided to come to Fez to end our trip and also happy it’s just two nights. The short stay meant we didn’t get worn down the way we did at the end of India (specifically 4 days in Delhi).
Near the blue gate in the Fez medina, the restaurants have blue colored everything.
One of the King’s many palaces. One Moroccan told us that if it’s nice and in Morocco, it belongs to the King.
A fountain with trippy patterns.
View from the rooftop of our Riad looking out over the Medina.
The famous Fez tanneries. They didn’t smell nearly as much as we’d expected, so either they weren’t busy or we had favorable wind.
The guys in this square spend all day hammering copper into bowls and pots.
You certainly are intrepid travelers. I cannot even imagine. Wonderful pictures!