Arriving in Morocco
Our trip to Morocco started in Casablanca. After 18 hours flight from Auckland to Doha and another 8 hours flight from Doha to Casablanca, we finally got to Morocco.
Before getting too much into detail, let me share an interesting fact with you. I’ve just realized that Doha to Casablanca flight is 8 hours long on board. Somehow I was thinking by having a long flight to Doha, we are almost there!! The interesting fact is flight from JFK in New York to Casablanca is shorter than Doha to Casablanca!!
Anyway we finally got to Casablanca airport early in the morning. Casablanca wasn’t part of our itinerary and we booked a small hotel in a village on the outskirt of Casablanca for a night to avoid the big city dramas and get on the train to our next destination on the following day.
We picked Le petite Ferme hotel, which was located half way between airport and the city in a calm small village.
We’ve been greeted with a hot mint tea and amazing homemade fresh apple cake while we were waiting to check in to our room. This hotel is a family run business with basic rooms and warm environment.
The plan was going north by the coast from Casablanca as soon as the following day but we had to change it since Amir got really sick. He was sick before getting on the flight and till last minute we weren’t’ sure if it’s a right choice to fly to Morocco or not but we did go ahead with the plan in the last minute. In Doha to Casablanca flight he got worse again and we ended up staying in our Hotel in Casablanca for few days for him to recover and for both of us to get over the jet lag. I definitely felt lucky that we stayed in such a calm area away from the madness of Casablanca for few days to recover and reschedule all our plans for the rest of the trip.
Visiting Casablanca:
After few days of resting and having hearty homemade Tagine for lunches and dinners, we decided to visit Casablanca for half a day while we were waiting for Amir to get better. We got a taxi to the city most famous monument, The Hasan II Mosque. It’s the second biggest functioning mosque in the whole Africa and is just completed in 1993.
After spending few hours there and watched the daily life of prayers coming in and out of the mosque by the Atlantic ocean, we went for a walk around city center to get the feeling on the biggest city in Morocco and its biggest port and the country financial hub. It definitely romanticize in the world due to the famous American drama, Casablanca, built in 1942 but it is definitely far from a romantic city. After a short walk around the city we got back to the hotel and booked a train ticket for the next day for Fes. Initially the plan included a short stay in Rabat, the capital of Morocco but we had to skip it, since we stayed in our first hotel for too long. Train ride from Casablanca to Fes only takes 4 hours and it’s a easy comfortable ride. We managed to get on a train on one stop after Casablanca since we were staying out of town and skipped a second trip to Casablanca.
Fes, our favorite town in Morocco:
It was early in the afternoon that we got to the Fes train station. A short taxi ride took us to one of the main gates of the Fes medina where we knew it’s the closet to our hotel. I picked a hotel as close as I could to the walls of the Medina because knowing about the alleyways of the Fes medina we didn’t want to get lost on our arrival with heavy backpacks. We found our hotel / home stay without any drama thanks to the detailed map that we were given when we reserved our room. We knocked on a small door in a quite narrow alley way and we soon realized what is behind these small doors and high walls of the Fes Medina!
Owned by a French lady who was has been living in Morocco and Fes for over a decade, Fes Et Gestes was a gem and definitely was one of the reasons we felt in love with Fes too. She was living on the upper floor while she was renting out two rooms in the first floor. Our room overlooking the garden was filled with antique objects and was decorated tastefully.
Walking around Fes:
Medieval city of Fes is the home to the world first university and since 1981 it is a UNESCO world heritage site. With 9000 alleys packed within the walls of the old Medina, finding the way within the medina is a real challenge and fun at the same time if you can ignore hustlers.
The first day we arrived in Fes, we managed our way alright to our hotel since it was located nicely on the edge of the medina and close to medina wall and we got a very nice and detailed guideline from the hotel owner. The next morning however, we soon realized how hard it’s to find the way and how easy it is to get lost. Medina of Fez looks like a big bowl with the medina wall located around the rim and deeper you get into the bowl, it gets denser, and harder to navigate. It creates fun for the kid around the medina and adds to the confusion for the visitors. As you walk through narrow alleys, they keep shouting that this is a dead end, this is a dead end and you are lost to earn a little money and be your guide or just have some fun laughing at confused travelers.
Google map and a paper map is not working and we found the Here we go app works perfectly and have a precise map of the maze of alley ways in Fes. So we used the offline map of Fes as a guide for 4 days that we stayed there and it worked perfectly. What is amazing about the old city of Fes is its authenticity and the fact that it is still lived as it used to when it was founded in 8th -9th centuries under Idrisid Rule.
Famous for its tanneries, it is visited with tourists but it’s not as popular as cities like Marrakesh and it’s not spoiled by tourism as much as there. Somehow it still has its charm and authenticity. We were planning to stay there just for two days and we ended up there for 4!
Fes Artisans and Famous Fes Tanneries:
Walking in Fes, it is hard not to be impressed with the level of craftsmanship used for building this town. From intricate wood carved doors to amazing brass light fitting just used as street lights and the mesmerizing blue and green tiles used everywhere. And it’s not about the old medieval ones. Walking through the town, all these craftsmanship is still very much alive with artisans siting in their tiny workshops and work on their pieces of art which most of the time happens to be a household item.
After wondering around in Fes for few days, having who knows how many mint teas and tagine dishes and got lost and found in Fes medina countless times, we decided to visit Fes famous tanneries which happens to be the city most famous attractions and normally what you see from Fes in travel blogs and guidebooks. There are plenty of organized tours for visiting tanneries but after spending few days in town, we thought we can find our ways there easily. The closer we got to the area that tanneries were located, the odd smell was coming through and if you remember when I talked about the Fes medina looking like a big bowl, well we are getting to the bottom of the bowl and the narrow cobblestone alleys got steeper and steeper and in some parts they were built more like a staircase. Something was telling us we are getting close to the dark side of Fes!
While the urine smell was getting stronger and stronger and it was getting almost unbearable, we started to see more and more donkeys, loaded with mainly untreated animal skins with some flesh still on them trying desperately to walk through the wet slippery cobblestones alleys and every now and then they fell off and with heavy load on their back, they couldn’t even stand back up without help.
It was quite a surreal and uncomfortable situation to be in, especially adding the hustlers that constantly wanted to give you a tour of a tannery. Finally we managed to get through one of the tiny doors in one of those alleys and went upstairs through narrow wooden staircase to a balcony overlooking the tanneries. And we finally saw the famous tanneries of Fes, treating and dying leather for centuries in a same method. Walking back down we saw lots of leather good shops and wondered is it really the best place to buy leather goods after seeing all these. But apart from the harsh scene, we do appreciate all the hard work that these workers were going through to treat leather, definitely one of the hardest jobs working in a mixure of blood, flesh and urine walking on the edges of these massive vessels.
Fes has a lot to offer and we found the best of it by just walking around and getting lost deep in the medina. Like this cool tiny café serving interesting and exotic herbal teas. We hand picked our favorite herbs from the buckets in front of the café and watch the life passing by while enjoying the best tea in town.
The other fun thing to do in Fes is watching the sunset from a rooftop right in the heart of Fes while listening to the call for prayer from one of many mosques in the medina. Fes is also a great location to have a day trip to more northern destinations in Morocco like the famous Chefchaouen. That’s what we’ve done while we were in Fes, we’ll get into that in the next post. till then, take care.
