By JEFF GREENWALD
For 1,200 years the souks of this mazelike medina served as an Arab and European crossroads.
Now expatriates, foreign governments, and no less than the King of Morocco himself are fueling the glorious resurgence of Fès.
“Balak! Balak!!”
I’m standing halfway between flasks of rose water and preserved camel heads, bargaining for a silver-plated teapot, when the warning shout rings out. With an instinct that develops quickly in the souks of Fès, I dart forward, pressing close to the wall of the mazelike medina.
While the donkey clears me by a wide margin, its enormous load – an imported refrigerator – misses me by inches. I watch as animal and driver disappear around a bend, the hoof beats and warning cry fading against a cacophony of squeaking cart wheels, shouting carpet dealers, oud music, and the afternoon call to prayer.
If Marrakech is the flashy, famous face of Morocco, Fès is the country’s eternal beating heart. Established in AD 809, the imperial city – a hybrid of Arabic and Spanish influences – remains the focus of Moroccan craft and culture, just as it has long been the country’s center of religious worship, higher education, and political intrigue. And though there are newer sections of the city – such as the Ville Nouvelle and the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) – its ancient medina, or urban center, has been in continuous use for 12 centuries. Known as Fès el-Bali (Old Fès), the walls of this UNESCO World Heritage site embrace magnificent mosques, by most accounts the world’s oldest university, and some of the planet’s most dazzling markets.
Viewed from the overlooking Borj Sud (South Fort), all signs of commerce vanish. The Fès medina becomes a mosaic of flat rooftops, enlivened by hanging clothes and potted flowers. Ten thousand satellite dishes tilt upward like moon-faced supplicants.
I turn to my guide, Mohammad. “Are they pointed at Mecca?”
“No!” He laughs loudly. “At the satellite – a new kind of Mecca, for those who worship soap operas and sports.”
The dishes signal that, like so many places that long seemed frozen in time, the medina is celebrating its 1,200th birthday with metamorphosis and renewal. Part of the motivation is necessity: Whole districts of Old Fès are literally falling down, the wood-and-stucco buildings collapsing after centuries of wear. Addressing this problem is a big job, and Fès is getting help – millions of dollars’ worth – from foreign donors. These range from countries such as Saudi Arabia to organizations such as the United States’ Millennium Challenge Corporation, which strives to “reduce global poverty through the promotion of sustainable economic growth.”
But smaller-scale renovations are being driven by affluence and globalization. Expats from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and the United States are moving into the medina, fixing up old dars (houses) and creating elegant riads (small hotels) and cafés. Well-to-do Fassis (locals) are doing the same, transforming the dilapidated buildings into multilevel boutiques offering Berber carpets, Tuareg silver, and hand-painted ceramics.
The challenge, of course, is for the souks to enter the twenty-first century without losing their ninth-century flavor – and efforts to preserve that ancient mystique are succeeding. The joy of shopping in the medina and getting giddily lost in those narrow meandering streets must be very similar to the way it was back when algebra was invented.
The Fes medina has 14 babs (gates) and more than 9,500 byways. Labyrinths invite many metaphors, and visitors experience all of them. At turns I feel like a corpuscle, swept along through arterial alleys; like Theseus in search of the Minotaur; like a mouse in a maze. Smells are overwhelming, and distractions infinite.
And what do I see? Shopkeepers selling mirrors chased with vivid tile and henna-red bone; huge brass censers right out of Aladdin; stalls displaying blocks of pink and white nougat, freckled with pistachio and sesame; leather babouche slippers in every color of the rainbow; exquisite dates and green olives, hard chocolate and loose cigarettes; aromatic rose petals in silver bowls; stained glass chandeliers; carpets and kilims; bolts of iridescent cloth woven from the silk of the agave cactus; pyramids of oranges waiting to be squeezed into the world’s sweetest juice; hooded djellabas and black leather jackets; pop posters of Bob Marley and Eminem tacked on the whitewashed walls between bookstalls, where wooden shelves sag with illuminated copies of the Koran.
It’s the opposite of online shopping: a full-body experience that engages every sense and is defined as much by what you can’t buy as by what you can. Looking for a linen burnoose, amber beads, antiaging argan oil, or a hookah? No problem. But you won’t find iPod covers, the new Harry Potter novel, or mocha Frappuccinos.
Picture a scene out of a surreal folktale – an impression heightened as you venture deeper into the warren of streets, where ramshackle buildings lean at Seuss-like angles. Some 1,160 structures in the medina, in fact, are held together with wooden scaffolding, the work of ADER-Fès, a Moroccan agency charged with preserving and rebuilding parts of the city.
“For a long time there was a lot of neglect here,” says David Amster, a droll American expat who directs an Arabic language school in the city. “What I would call ‘benign neglect.’ This resulted in the Fès medina being very well preserved!” When there’s no money for renovation, in other words, things tend to keep their original character.
Now that equation is changing, due in part to political will. “The current king seems to love Fès,” says Amster. “He married a wonderful, intelligent woman from Fès, and he visits a lot. There’s now an official policy of helping Fès and promoting tourism.”
Expatriates keen to preserve the medina’s status as a vibrant international nexus are aiding the process. Amster was the first non-Moroccan to buy a home and live in the medina after the French left in the 1950s. He owns five properties, the first of which he bought in 1997. Since then, many foreigners have bought and restored dars in Old Fès. Today, Amster guesses, expats own some 500 of the medina’s 9,000 traditional homes.
“One positive thing about this trend,” he says, “is that it’s giving work to traditional craftsmen. Before, there was virtually no market for such people – so someone who made zellij (hand-cut tile mosaics), or a master wood or plaster carver, would become a taxi driver. This new influx of interest and money provides work for these artisans and makes it attractive to learn such skills.”
Old Fes fans out in a rough oval, seeded by the original Berber families and refugees from Andalusia, and growing as settlers from other parts of the Arabic and Semitic worlds arrived. Two main talaa, or slopes, meander through its mix of shopping souks, religious centers, and artisan districts. In some areas, merchants sell only prayer books or slippers; other neighborhoods host colorful but foul-smelling tanneries. Finding specific wares isn’t easy; sometimes the mix of merchants is a hodgepodge.
I meet a friend for lunch at the Palais Mnebhi, a former official residence with high plaster domes and mosaics snaking along the walls. We’re served quickly: nine dishes of vegetables, and freshly baked bread. We stuff ourselves on eggplant, lentils, and carrot and tomato salads, barely leaving room for dessert: a delicate, sugar-dusted pastilla. It’s sweet and savory, unlike any pastry I’ve tasted before. We sink back in our chairs, utterly sated.
Then they bring out lunch.
A huge tray with a conical lid is placed on our table. Within it lies a steaming tagine of roasted chicken in lemon sauce, enough for six people. We eat as much as we can (which isn’t much). Then the couscous arrives – a mountain of cloud-soft semolina, laced with chunks of succulent, delicately spiced lamb. I want to weep; there’s no way I can eat more than a forkful of this dish. They take it away, practically untouched. At that point, with unbridled audacity, the waiter appears with the dessert tray.
This is the limit, I protest loudly. My server rears back, regarding me as if I’m insane.
“C’est l’habitude,” he informs me sternly. “On ne va pas changer.” It’s our custom – and it’s not going to change.
With this, I surrender. I get it. It's impossible for many visitors to understand what it means to be served lunch in Morocco. We’re used to seeing food as a symbol of hospitality and a mark of cooking skill. “Wasting” it is an insult. But here, food is an indelible part of Islamic culture. Its preparation, presentation, and divine excess are part of a sacred duty to honor guests – whether or not they can swallow it.
I waddle out of the Mnebhi Palace and onto Talaa Seghira (Little Slope), one of two relatively wide, inclined streets that, along with Talaa Kebira (Big Slope), transect the medina.
Along these routes, and in the seemingly infinite lanes snaking away from them, lay the hidden gems of shopping in Fès: the gold market, the tambourine bazaar, the leathersmiths, and the famous Henna Souk – the center for traditional cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. One shop sells nothing but plastic flowers, which overflow into the nearby lane. At another, I sample Morocco’s finest dates.
Architectural masterpieces by traditional Fassi craftsmen are everywhere. Interpretive panels in English and French provide the history and context for the scores of mosques, madrassas, fountains, and mausoleums within Old Fès. A series of self-guided walking tours, marked by color-coded signs, keeps tourists from getting hopelessly lost. (Personally, I think the signs are spoilers; getting lost is, after all, one of the great charms of the medina.)
Around 200,000 residents call Old Fès home. It seems I encounter every one of them as I thread my way through the busy alleys, bargaining for a door knocker here, a silver pendant there, a bar of fragrant soap. I sample aphrodisiac powders and try on a hand-sewn fez. Carpet sellers unfurl Berber rugs across the floors of their showrooms, the colors exploding like fireworks: “Close your eyes, open your heart, take this one home!”
Bargaining is a part of life in Fès, and during my week of wandering through the medina I warm to the tradition. It’s not just about getting the best deal; it’s a form of social engagement. Before I walk away with my teapot, for example, I know where the metalworker’s son is going to school – and he knows that not all American writers are as rich as Hemingway.
One hot afternoon I rendezvous with Fouad Serrhini, the genial director general of ADER-Fès, to visit some of the city’s more ambitious restoration projects. Serrhini, whose dapper suit seems preposterous in the midday heat, navigates the souks with the finesse of a native. And Serrhini did indeed grow up here, living in the medina until he was 5.
“At that age, even going from one mosque to another seemed a vast distance,” he recalls. “The walls of the medina seemed the limit of the world.”
At one time, they were. “Shopping is an old tradition in Fès,” says Serrhini. “Everything people needed for their daily lives was produced inside the medina. Travelers came from Andalusia, North Africa, the southern deserts… That’s why there were about 120 phone books in the medina.”
“Phone books?”
“Fondouks. Caravansaries. These were multilevel inns with open courtyards where the caravans stayed.”
The restoration of four of these fondouks is part of the work Serrhini is doing, helping to transform them into high-end artisan centers with restaurants, banks, shipping services, and top-shelf handicrafts. There might even be elevators.
The goal, clearly, is to bring these historically important buildings back in an authentic way that will benefit the people of the medina. When I mention concerns that such fervent renovation can lead to a loss of authenticity, Serrhini brings me to Fondouk el-Nejjarine, his agency’s first success story. The once decrepit caravansary is now an elegant woodworking museum, with a café on the top floor.
Two other projects are much bigger than caravansary restoration. One involves rehabilitating the Makina site, a vast former armament factory now fallen to ruin. The other includes rebuilding the Lala Yadouna square along the banks of the Jawahir River.
Serrhini takes me into a few dark workshops, where we exchange greetings with the artisans. One, a heavy man with an aquiline nose, engraves scenes from the Old Testament on huge sheets of copper. A younger man with a coarse beard and the build of a boxer fits ornate brass chandeliers with chips of stained glass. These goods will be sold at modest prices to merchants along the medina’s main avenues and resold to tourists.
“Our hope,” says Serrhini, “is that our renovations will help create a better economic balance, allowing these people – the ones actually making the artworks – to benefit more fairly from their work.”
For my final walk through the medina, I meet up with Helen Ranger, a British-born firebrand with vivid blue eyes and wild copper hair. An author and entrepreneur, she was drawn to Fès from South Africa by the annual Festival of World Sacred Music and writes “The View from Fez,” the only English-language blog from Morocco. We meet at Café Clock, a beautifully restored dar that its British owner hopes will become the center of Fès’ growing expat community. Flyers for oud concerts and Arabic language courses clutter a notice board, and the roar of an espresso machine punctuates our introductions.
Every journey into the medina is different, and each walk reveals new secrets. Ranger leads me into the honey bazaar, where I sample five varieties and buy a pound in what I’m assured is a leakproof jar. She shows me the best places to purchase henna powder and silver earrings. We pass wooden tables sagging beneath huge watermelons and watch well-fed cats – the favored pet of The Prophet – begging on their hind legs in front of butchers’ stalls.
I ask Ranger if she worries that the new development, combined with the influx of Westerners, will distort the essential character of the medina.
“I don’t think the spirit of the medina will change,” she declares. “People have always brought their skills and way of life into the Old City. It doesn’t change; it absorbs. It’s an evolving organism and always has been.”
I’m inclined to agree. After 12 centuries, the rose water and teapot sellers and tambourine makers are all still here, tucked between the minarets and madrassas. If boutique inns and chic cafés carve out niches as well, it’s proof positive that the old and new are continuing to interweave – as they always have – in the durable fabric of Fès.
Hundreds of shops fill Fès’ medina, and hidden gems reward those who wander. Here are some (relatively) easy-to-find treasure troves to get you started.
The Henna Souk: Hidden away in a magical courtyard off Talaa Kebira, this is the place for a potpourri of local cosmetics – and an Ali Baba’s “cave” of tchotchkes and antiques.
Au Coin du Bois: One of the best-appointed antique and furniture shops in the medina. Ask to see the replica Islamic diplomas. 20 Derb El Hammam
Le Petit Palais Traditionnel: A good place for bedspreads, many woven with the shimmering agave cactus fiber. 43 Ras Tyaline, Talaa Kebira
Brass and metalwork shops: Two souks on the Talaa Kebira stand out for ornaments, silver teapots, and other household fittings. 54 and 59 Talaa Kebira
Coin Berbere: One of the medina’s best-known sources for colorful Berber carpets. 67 Talaa Kebira
Bartal Khalid: A good variety of simple, lovely djellabas and burnooses, at reasonable prices (but bargain anyway!). 52 Talaa Seghira
Enter the Labyrinth
Urban Oasis
Built in 1879 as the residence of the Grand Vizier of Jamaï, the Moorish-style Sofitel Palais Jamaï is strategically tucked behind Fès’ bustling medina. But the vibe of the 142-room hotel, with its Andalusian gardens and zellij-tiled spa, is pure serenity. Guests can balance haggling at souks with a visit to a traditional hammam (Turkish bath), then head to the rooftop terrace for sweeping views of the medieval city and the hills beyond. Doubles from approximate $295, including breakfast daily and a couples’ bath at the hammam once during stay.
Voyage into the Past
Private guides and drivers allow travelers to explore at their own pace during 12 days with Mountain Voyage Morocco. The customizable, round-trip journey from Casablanca heads straight to Fès, where the Sofitel Palais Jamaï serves as a base for strolls through the old city and a day trip to historic Meknès and the Roman ruins of Volubilis. Parties spend three nights in Marrakech and head into the mountains to Imlil for a taste of village life and lunch at Kasbah Tamadot. Essaouira provides a chance for beachcombing before a final night in Casablanca. Departures: Any day through March 31, 2009; from approximate $5,819.
Maze of Possibility
Heritage Tours’ nine-day trip through Morocco kicks off in Fès, where guides help navigate the labyrinth of alleys with private walking tours amid the tanneries, various souks, and sights such as Fondouk el-Nejjarine and the Dar Batha Museum. Next up: the former Portuguese colony of Essaouira for a seaside respite. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the medina here is home to traditional thuya wood carvers and a thriving arts community. The itinerary wraps up in Marrakech, with guided excursions to the ornate twelfth-century Koutoubia Mosque, Jemâa el-Fna square, and the Islamic Art Museum. Departures: Any day through August 31, 2009 ; from $3,960.
Stylish Endeavor
Moroccan style is the focus of Absolute Travel’s custom 12-day journey from Marrakech to Fès. Participants check into a riad in Marrakech to explore the city’s rich art heritage, from the cobalt-blue botanical oasis of Jardin Majorelle to Ben Youssef Medersa, and drive across the High Atlas Mountains to the Skoura oasis and its seventeenth-century kasbah. The trip saves Fès for last, with three days dedicated to the restorations taking place in the medina, the Mellah (Jewish Quarter), and the thirteenth-century Fès el-Jedid (Fès the New) – along with plenty of time to shop for slippers and leather goods or browse the Henna Souk, of course. Departures: Any day through March 31, 2009; from approximate $10,530.
Feast Like Fassis
Tauck’s new nine-day trip leads from Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque (one of two in the country open to non-Muslims) and the twelfth-
century fortress Kasbah des Oudaya to the four imperial cities of Rabat, Meknès, Fès, and Marrakech. Groups tour beautifully preserved mosaics and communal baths in Volubilis, break for an Arabic lesson in Rabat, and visit a typical Berber home in the Ourika Valley. A notable highlight comes in Fès, when after a day of sights such as the Royal Palace, Bou Inania Medersa, and the medina’s tanneries and workshops, a lavish feast of tagines and spiced dishes is laid out at the riad La Maison Bleue. Multiple departures: January 23 through November 4, 2009; from $3,790. – MARGARET LOFTUS