On our city tour we stopped to admire the seven doors (one for each day of the week) of the Royal Palace.  The doors are cedar covered in bronze.  They are cleaned/shined with lemon juice. The mosaics around the doors are beautiful.

Royal Palace in Fes

Royal Palace Door 

Royal Palace Door 

Royal Palace Door - Tile work

Royal Palace Door - Tile work

     Next we entered the Jewish section, the Mellah.  Israeli Jews were invited to help populate this area of North Africa in the 14th c.  They became the business and jewelry merchants.  They left in the 20th c. to repopulate Israel.

      We walked through the narrow streets and alleys, looking at the shops and finally entered the seventeenth century Ibn Danan synagogue.  Their Torah is 500 years old and written on gazelle skin and from the roof you can see the centuries old cemetery.

Street in the Mellah

Synagogue Aben Danan

Synagogue Aben Danan - Torah

Synagogue Aben Danan

Jewish cemetery from the roof of the Synagogue

Shoe store in the Mellah

Sporting goods shop

The Dentist

Snails for sale

      We drove up to the south borg (fortress) and looked across the city to the north borg (center, on hill).  A tunnel once connected these two lookout towers and ran underneath the medina.

Narrowest alley

Beast of burden

Narrow, crowded alleys

Fresh veggies

Fresh meat and Gale with a cow's head

Making phyllo

Wringing out washed wool

Silver smith's shop

Candy store

Fancy clothes store

Tiled fountain in the medina

Long-suffering beast

Fresh lemons

Communal bakery - women bring their bread dough here to be baked

            We walked through the wood working souk where the workers were making elaborate wedding chairs.  A bride would be carried in a rented chair from house to house of friends and relatives.

Wedding chair

            We looked at the entrance of a the Qaraouiyine mosque and university established in 853 AD.  It currently has students from 54 countries.  The blue mosaic steps lead to the university.  Traditionally children started in Koranic schools and memorized the Koran and what it meant.  A graduate could become an Imam, judge, or translator, for example.  After Koranic school they may enter a university and be trained for many professions.

Blue mosaic steps leading to the university

More tile and carved stucco

       We entered an old 14th c. medersa or school (Medersa Attarine), known as the spice market university because it was located in the spice market inside the medina.  It has a beautiful Moorish arch and a courtyard with a fountain (for ablution before prayer), a prayer room, and second story dormitory. 

           The walls and columns contained mosaics on the lower portion, carved calligraphy of Koran verses, and then stucco over cedar wood at the top.  In the prayer room were stained glass windows made in Iraq.

           The tile work and carved wood and stucco were fabulous!

Links: http://www.morocco.com/blog/marvel-at-the-beauty-of-medersa-el-attarine

Medersa Attarine

Medersa Attarine

Medersa Attarine

Medersa Attarine

Medersa Attarine - carved stucco

Medersa Attarine - carved stucco

            The most unique souk was the leather tannery. People bring their camel, goat, sheep or cow hides here where they are seasoned in pigeon poop, washed, soaked for 20 days in a dye vat, then dried.  As with the carpets, only natural dyes are used: mint (green), henna (brown), indigo (blue), poppy (red), saffron (yellow and very expensive).

Tannery

Tannery

Tannery

Tannery

Tannery

Smelly place!

      We left the medina and were glad to ride on the bus to a mosaic school and factory.  Local clay is soaked in a pool of water and mashed up by workers' feet.  The clay is formed on kick wheel turntables and then fired in kilns, which burn olive pits - good recycling.  A piece is fired before and after glazing.  Tiles are painted using only mineral colors, refired and then cut by hand with a chisel hammer into the shapes needed for a particular mosaic design and beveled to fit together.  An artisan sets the tiles upside down in the pattern and then cement is spread on the back to hold the pieces together.  The top then receives a resin to fill in cracks and it is polished smooth and shiny.  There were many interesting pieces in the several show rooms.

Potter at work

Kiln

Cutting tiles by hand

Cutting tiles by hand

Laying out design by hand

Beautiful example of the products of the factory

Not a great picture, but you get the idea - we ate with our fingers (using bread) and sat around a very low table.