9/28/2026
This morning we booked a 3-hour walking tour of Fes. We learned a lot - I'm so glad we did it. We learned about the importance of the location and size of windows on their buildings, for privacy. We also learned about different entrances or different door knockers for family and women, versus strangers and men.
We visited a hammam. I never tried one, but it is an experience you can book. I couldn't tell if I would like it. But two of our guides we talked to said they do a hammam at least once a week.
We also visited the famous Chouara leather tannery. They give you a sprig of mint to sniff while you walk around, because the smell can be quite strong. The leather is cleaned, treated, and dyed in large stone vats. They actually use tons of pigeon poop in the process - and on sunny days it reeks. The pigments they use to dye the leather are all natural - such as mint.
The Fes medina is 1,200 years old. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The medina has neighborhoods within it. Inside the medina you'll find narrow carless streets, mosques, traditional houses, markets, and religious schools. There are around 9,000 streets in the medina. They form a maze. Our guide told us that this was to protect the medina from enemies. It is very easy to get lost in the medina, and we certainly lost our way multiple times (even with the help of Google maps). I've heard counts of between 185 and 400 mosques in the medina.
The three of us went out to eat at a restaurant with a view that we could sketch. In the evening, I wandered back to our riad's rooftop to continue a multi-day sketch I was doing of the view up there. As I sat up there sketching, flocks of white birds that look like ibises flew by past the main mosque in front of us.
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| A fountain - work is being done to restore them. |
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| It's extremely common to see food left out for the stray cats |
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| Scaffolding to help prevent this building from collapsing. |
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| Visiting a hammam |
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| Yarn dying area in the medina |
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| A canal that runs through town - it smells like a sewer |
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| A man making tiles |
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| A man taking off his shoes when entering a mosque |
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| Inside one of the larger mosques |
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| I believe this is the women's entrance to the mosque |
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| The leather tannery |
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| It's a wet job! |
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| Not tagine! |
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| The ancient buildings topped with antennas made such a cool contrast. |
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| Our riad with decorative plaster and tiles |
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Another evening on the rooftop.
We kept seeing flocks of white birds (storks? egrets?) flying by the main mosque |
