{"id":23076,"date":"2019-05-11T18:35:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T10:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.azuanzahdi.com\/?p=23076"},"modified":"2019-05-11T18:44:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-11T10:44:54","slug":"part-4-historical-calm-and-beautiful-city-of-fes-muchmorocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuanzahdi.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/11\/part-4-historical-calm-and-beautiful-city-of-fes-muchmorocco\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 4: Historical, Calm and Beautiful City of Fes #MuchMorocco"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a tiring 3-day adventure being off-the-grid enjoying the beauty of Sahara Desert<\/a>, it felt great to be able to enjoy a nice long hot shower and be back in a city, this time the city of Fes, Morocco.<\/p>\n

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Halfway between Desert and Fes. The drive in Morocco is always long but never short of things to see.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If there is one rookie mistake we made throughout our Morocco trip it must be the decision to allocate only 2 days to discover Fes. 2 days is just way too short to absorb a lot of things Fes has to offer.<\/p>\n

It turns out that Fes (or Fez to some) is a charming old city that we ended up enjoying more than Marrakesh. Despite the Medina is equally hectic, somehow the old lanes felt more authentic, the ambience was less commercial and more importantly the locals were more friendly and approachable. No surprise that Fes\u2019 Medina has been named to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1981.<\/p>\n

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Riads in Fes are as beautiful and we made the right decision to stay right in the Medina where all the action is just a few steps away. My wife and I chose Riad Taryana as our base in Fes due to its location (and obviously price factor).<\/p>\n

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A typical basic, comfortable and instagrammable Riad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fes continues to be an icon of medieval Islamic society set in modern times. We stumbled upon various Madarasahs that continue to serve its role in teaching Islam across many generations.<\/p>\n

The location of our riad is right next to Bou Inania Madrasa, a must-see attraction in Fes, so it made perfect sense for us to be the first couple of visitors to enter the Madrasa on the day we visited.<\/p>\n

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The only 2 visitors!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Entering the Madrasa you would easily be amazed by its signature large marble courtyard flanked by two sizeable halls. In the middle of the courtyard, a place to perform wudhu\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Elements of the Andalusian architecture and beautiful craftsmanship of wood carving can be seen as we explored the Madrasa. Right in front of the courtyard is the prayer hall section of the Madrasa which is off-limits to tourists but I did manage to perform my Friday prayers there later that day.<\/p>\n

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Just outside the Madrasa is the famous Dar al-Magana (Arabic for “clockhouse”) a house that holds a weight-powered water clock. Completed in 1357, it\u2019s an intricate clock where water flows from one end to the other and calculates time. The clock mechanism inside is currently being reconstructed and it would be cool to see it back in action one day!<\/p>\n

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The old medina of Fes is an attraction by itself. Hundreds of lanes would bring you to various part of the old city and there is always something to see, buy, smell and eat! We were told that back then the residents of the old medina could live their entire life without ever venturing outside. You really have everything here.<\/p>\n

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Going through the narrow lanes, it would not take long for us to realise how often we had used minarets of mosques as our landmarks to navigate. True enough, the way Fes medina was designed is by having mosques positioned in the center of the city with shops and residences built around them.<\/p>\n

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And the next mosque we visited is amazing for one reason. Not only because it is the second largest mosque in Morocco but it is impressive to know that this mosque and madrasa is recognised by the Guinness World Records as well as UNESCO as the oldest continuously operating, degree-granting university in the world.<\/p>\n

I present to you, the world\u2019s oldest university – The University of Al-Karaouine<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Founded in 859 AD, this mosque has a simple yet elegant design with Andalusian influence and Kufic calligraphy but what caught my attention during the visit was the fact that this mosque and Fes specifically has played a significant role in producing Muslim scholars with students coming from all parts of the world including Malaysia.<\/p>\n

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Besides education and tourism, Fes\u2019s old city is still based on traditional industries such as tanneries, trading of leather goods, soap making and textile. Visiting a leather tannery<\/strong> in Fes is a must-do kind of experience for good and bad reasons.<\/p>\n

On a positive side, the tanneries offer a unique view and learning experience on how leather is being processed into goods \u2014 yes, your expensive bags, belts and jackets. It is also unfortunately the no# 1 item in the \u201cscam\u201d or \u201ctourist trap\u201d list for Fes.<\/p>\n

We went with our hotel guide thinking that we will be safe from the street promoters who will try to lead you to their stores. We survived that part. But we will only be able to view the tanneries from one of the surrounded leather shops so our guide brought us to one of the more reliable and trusted shops.<\/p>\n

As we reached the tannery, the smell from the leather was quite strong so we were handed sprigs of mint to protect our delicate noses. We were introduced to our tannery host \u2014 Mr Ahmad who did an excellent job explaining about the leather goods making process.<\/p>\n

And the view was amazing!<\/p>\n

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Mint to help overcome the smell from the leather processing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Locals hard at work.<\/p>\n

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Ahmad sounded and looked very familiar and when he finally introduced himself in detailed that I remembered where I saw him before.<\/p>\n

Ahmad was featured in Nas Daily as the guy who never when to school!. See the video here<\/p>\n