Fez medina8/2/2023 “We have 11 madrassas,” or Islamic schools, he told me. One of our first stops was a recently restored small synagogue, the last of 17 that once existed here.Īsefar was immensely proud of how the medina had retained its roots and vibrant life. The medina has two adjoining quarters - 9th century Fez el Bali (or Old Fez) and 13th century Fez el Djedid (or New Fez), which once included a thriving Jewish enclave. Now Chinese tour groups arrive by bus.īut the medieval city remains a place of magic, especially in the early morning and after midafternoon, when the crowds thin.įor our first day, we hired an excellent guide, Khlafa El Asefar ( to help us navigate the maze and show us the historic tombs, palaces, fountains and museums. Camel caravans once crossed the desert to bring sugar, salt and gold to Fez from Timbuktu and beyond. There are about 200 today, thanks to a boom in so-called cultural tourism. The medina was an impoverished and forbidding place then, and their dar was only the third guest house in it. It had been abandoned for decades, so it took three years - and tens of thousands of donkey loads - to make it livable. They bought the dar - it’s thought to be 600 years old, but no one is certain - and hired 80 craftsmen to restore it, plus add electricity, toilets and the rest. After a professor suggested he specialize in Arabic architecture, he and Kate settled on Fez in 2003. Said was an Iraqi conscript in Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran in the 1980s, and after escaping an Iranian prison, he fled to Oslo, where he was accepted as a refugee and became an architect. We never had a moment’s concern during our four nights here, thanks to the solicitude of owners Alaa Said and his wife, Kate Kvalvik, enterprising Norwegians who have made their home here. But that was the point.Ī lavish breakfast was served family-style so guests could meet, and dinners were offered the same way. We had no TV, no locks on the doors and spotty Wi-Fi. Stained-glass windows near the top sent shafts of blue, red and yellow light bouncing around us. Worn Berber carpets lay underfoot, and a magnificent inlaid cedar ceiling soared into a dome 20 feet high. Above that, intricate calligraphy and a sculpted frieze circled the room. Past an arch with towering wooden doors, a multicolored riot of zellij lined the floor and part way up the walls. Our suite had two rooms and was downright palatial. This dar had seven guest rooms, and each had been extravagantly restored. A dar is a traditional large Moroccan home, generally two floors around an open courtyard flanked by columns and corridors, all lined with an ornate mosaic of tiles known as zellij, and intricately carved and painted stucco called tadelakt. A grand old homeĭar Seffarine, named for the nearby brass market, was an ideal oasis in the middle of the hustle and bustle in the medina. Most have no names, but our guesthouse turned out to be three blind turns down a dark passage called Lane of Seven Twists. A man had grabbed our bags from the taxi and led us at a half-run through the first gate, then another, over a small foot bridge and deep into the labyrinth of 9,600 narrow lanes inside the ancient walled city.
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