Wandering around the narrow labyrinth that is the 1200 year old Fes Médina you come across the most amazing buildings built into the warren of alleyways. These buildings are mosques, museums and schools, sitting side by side with shops, workshops and homes.
156,000 people still call the Medina home and live, work and exist within the maze like streets that it is famed for. What makes some of these buildings stand out and sets them apart is their beautiful, ancient detailing and awesome states of preservation.
This is an Old University Dormitory for Religious Students. Male Muslim students lived here while studying the Quran in the oldest university in the World, which is here, in the Fes Medina!
The building is beautiful, so simple looking yet the designs are so delicate and intricate. Like all buildings in the Medina there are no windows facing out into the streets, only doorways. You walk inside the door and you enter a beautiful light filled courtyard with a roof open to the air to let in the light. The house is built around this courtyard and the windows of the house all open into the courtyard space.
The living quarters of this institution are a bit on the grim side. No comforts here. There is a mezzanine wooden deck in the tiny closet sized rooms where you sleep on the tiled floor when it is cool in summer and on the mezzanine floor in winter when the heat rises making it a bit warmer.
Life in these dormitories revolved around study, prayer and sleep. The Quran has to learnt by heart if you are partaking in religious studies to become a religious leader.
Walking down the narrow alley ways the craftsmanship and detailing in the decoration of entries and doorways is jaw dropping, you do not know what is behind the doors and plain walls but you can bet it will be amazing judging by the door design alone!
Rosie is peeking through this door into a prophet’s mausoleum. Only Muslims are allowed to enter a lot of the sacred buildings in the Medina. Some are only for men and some only allow woman in certain areas of the interior.
Reaching into the open doorway and craning my neck and camera as far in as they can go, the interior and its designs inside are just beautiful.
Then Mohammed, Rosie and The Operators guide around the Medina for the day….told her to look up….wowza!
This is the main mosque in the Médina, it can hold up to 2,000 people inside. The call had just gone out for midday prayer and men were on their way inside for prayers. The fountain in the middle is for the ritual ablutions before prayer and the space looks so beautiful and tranquil…sorry Rosie, its another world here, only Muslims and only men.
Near the square of The Copper Workers is one of the oldest water fountains that supply water to those living in this area of the Medina. The wells are supplied by an underground river that runs under the Medina supplying water to the population.
The river pops up on the edge of the Square Rcif before disappearing underground again.
This is a beautiful old inn that is 800 years old! The front door to the inn is in the above top picture of the well. The keyhole shaped door behind the well is the entrance.
When traders came to the Medina they would bring their camels or donkeys into the courtyard pictured and stable them there. Trading was done via these original scales and accommodation, housing and offices were upstairs. This is an incredible building that has now been turned into a museum that showed us the ancient tools used in the Medina by the tradesman, some of the more ancient things they made and materials that they were made from. No photos inside the museum rooms please Rosie.
You can only imagine what is behind these beautiful doors….
In the crammed alleys these grand exteriors appear when you least expect them as you turn a corner.
Seeing we are looking at buildings, Rosie and The Operator will show you around their Riad in Fes where we stayed for three nights. This building was once a residential house and has been since been turned into a small hotel.
The internal courtyard still has the original water fountain and you can see how the building opens into the courtyard. The roof that is normally open has been covered so the courtyard is weather proofed and can be used for breakfast and dining. The tiles are amazing….but are terrible for acoustics. Anyone having a late dinner or an early start can be heard very clearly and annoyingly in your room.
When we first arrived at the Riad this is the traditional welcome mint tea and biscuits. While we were filling in our paperwork at the table, Rosie was gobsmacked with the decor.
This is our room, over two levels, with the balcony. That is our door, the red one to the right. All of the rooms open out into the courtyard as they would have back in the day.
This is our beautiful door from the inside. Rosie is just loving the details and the colours and totally fell in love with it!
Through the courtyard door you enter our room and there are two single beds and a seating area downstairs. Our bedroom and the bathroom is upstairs, we were the only one with a wee balcony just off the bedroom that looked out over the courtyard. We loved having a coffee or some fruit up there at the end of the day.
Our favourite place though would have to be the rooftop terrace of our Riad. It looks out over the bustling Square Rcif and gives you a real insight into living in this crazy town. This square as Rosie has mentioned seems to be one of the breathing spaces of the Medina. People come flooding out of the cramped streets into this square to just have some space around them. The kids come to play and kick a ball around, woman and families come to gather in the evenings for a catch up. There is always something to watch and see from our rooftop position and it never gets boring looking out over the beige rooftops.
This city has felt very foreign to visit and sometimes it is a little uncomfortable in its differences so this position, on the roof above the heads of the country and its people was a welcome respite at the end of the day.
Tomorrow Rosie and The Operator will show you around one of the most famous sights in the Medina. The Fes Leather Tanneries…this is truly an amazing sight and Rosie cannot wait to show you a process and tradition that is ongoing today that has not changed in a thousand years! Till tomorrow.
