Paris with Ellie - Part 1, or, my time in Paris when I wasn't actually with Ellie

Ahhhh, Paris.  Usually, Paris is the first place that students studying in London go.  In fact, reading week, the seventh week of the semester where you don’t have classes in order to “catch up on your reading,” most of my fellow study abroad friends went to Paris for the week.  Having already been to Paris and knowing that I would spend a day in Paris as part of my April Eurotrip, I chose to go to Morocco instead.  Well, as fate would have it, our plans to go to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day fell through and a good family friend of mine contacted me to let me know that she would be in Paris that weekend.  As a teacher, she got spring break off and was going to spend it in Germany with her family.  They were going to be out of town the first weekend of her spring break so she decided to spend a couple days in Paris before making her way to Germany.  She was only going to be there the 18^th -20^th but since I had classes I had to attend on the 20^th, I decided to get myself to Paris on the 15^th and spend a few days exploring Paris by myself before joining up with my friend. 

Thus, I found myself spending St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Paris.  Now, there are multiple options for traveling between London and Paris.  The most expensive but also most convenient option is surprisingly to take the Eurostar train.  When people think of backpacking around Europe, they always think of getting an inter-rail pass and traveling on the cheap around Europe.  England, for some reason, is not part of the Eurorail agreement between the various European train companies that lets students travel on the cheap.  Alas, the train between London and Paris can be really expensive if you don’t book well in advance and at off-peak times.   The next option is to take a flight, which actually isn’t that expensive.  If you go on one of the budget airlines, your ticket would definitely be less expensive than a last-minute ticket on a train, but then you have to deal with weight limits on checked bags and having to separate out all your liquids.  Since the train only takes 2.5 hours, the 1 hour flight between Paris and London ends up taking the same amount of time when you factor in check-in time and waiting for your bag at bag claim.  So, I decided to try and save some money by taking the cheapest option, a Eurolines coach ride for £44, or about $77 round trip.  When compared to the nearly £200 it would have cost me to take the train, it definitely seemed like the smart option!  My coach would leave London at 10:30 pm and arrive in Paris at 8 am.  Even though this was a significantly longer journey time than the train or a flight, I figured as long as I slept on the coach I wouldn’t really be missing out on anything and I was spending five days in Paris so I could afford to spend a little more time in transit. 

As fate would have it, I was meant to get off my coach at Charles de Gaulle, one of the world’s largest airports and certainly the most confusing airport I’ve ever been to.  I’ve now traveled through CDG three times and I honestly still have no clue what the hell is going on at that nightmare of an airport.  In London, I easily found the Victoria coach station as signs directed me all the way there.  And even if I hadn’t been able to follow the signs, there were plenty of people around working whom I could have asked.  At the London desk, I had to turn in my printed off confirmation and in return I received two tickets.  In the interest of saving money, (again) I decided to stay on the coach to the final stop, Galleni metro stop, bypassing the CDG stop, so that I could avoid paying the extra €10 airport to city metro fare.  It also saved me a lot of hassle by not having to lug my suitcase so far through the metro.  Anywho, my voyage there was completed without any problems and I arrived without difficulty at the metro stop closest to my hotel, Gare du l’Est without any significant confusion.

As you may recall, I arrived at around 8 in the morning, so I had the entire day to explore Paris.  I stopped by my hotel to drop off my luggage and I was off!  The first thing I wanted to do was go on the “Walk Dead Famous” self-guided walking tour that my awesome TimeOut Paris guidebook recommended.  This walk passed by many of the more famous Paris sites such as the Louvre, but it was really meant to show you the final resting places of some of the great intellectuals who have found their final resting place in Paris.  So, basically it included a couple cemeteries, which I guess is a little morbid, but a lot of these people, especially Voltaire, are some of my personal ideological idols and I really couldn’t possibly pass up the chance to pay my respects.  Parts of the walking tour were meant to be completed on a bike using the Vélib city bike hire but in case you haven’t noticed yet, I like doing things on the cheap so I figured I would just walk the whole thing.  What I didn’t realize is that the distance covered between some of these sites is actually much much further than I thought.  Starting my walk at 9 am, I didn’t finish until after 5 pm returning to my hotel by 6 pm absolutely exhausted.  It turned out to be a great way to orient myself to the city since my walk took me through at least seven or eight of Paris’s 20 “arrondisements” or quarters.  After navigating my way through all of that, I really felt confident in my grasp of the layout of the city. 

Anywho, along my walk, I passed by many well-known Paris landmarks such as the Jardin du Tuileries. 

 And the Louvre

Before embarking on my discovery of some of Paris’s hidden treasures.  Along the way, I stumbled upon this statue of Molière, the Shakespeare of the French language, even though it wasn’t specifically listed in the description of my route.  It was so refreshing to find such a marvelous memorial to one of the greatest authors of all time and to not see a single other tourist.  A simple five minute walk away the Louvre awaits, the mecca of all tourists, which has completely sold out to over-commercialization and foreign influence and is constantly abuzz with the flashes of hundreds of cameras.  I quite preferred this quiet spot, sitting by myself, reveling in the greatness of Molière desperately hoping that some of his prodigious talent would grace my own writing (don’t hold your breath for this one though; I am still an engineer after all). 

Next up, I stopped by the Comedie Français to see the actual remains of Molière which are supposed to be contained within a statue inside the front hall.  The Comedie is also supposed to hold Voltaire’s brain in some kind of statue in their museum.  Unfortunately, the Comedie was closed for construction work and I wasn’t able to enter.  I was proud of myself, however, since I was able to use my French to ask a lady sitting at a desk in a side entrance if I could see the main entrance and understand her response. 

Next up, I crossed from the right bank to the left bank, by way of the Ile de la Cité, crossing paths with Notre Dame along the way.

I also walked through the area around the Sorbonne University which is a very interesting area in its own right.  As student areas tend to be, it is a very liberal part of the city and is often home to protests.  Walking through the streets I saw many congregations of students and plenty of revolutionary posters everywhere. 

My destination was the Panthéon, however, which is the final resting place of Voltaire’s body minus a few organs which have been distributed throughout various museums and memorials.  The Panthéon was originally supposed to be a church, but during the French Revolution the revolutionaries redubbed it to be “Aux Grandes Hommes la Partie Reconnaissants,” or “To the Great Men the Party Knew.”  Thus, the Panthéon is now the final resting place of many of the French Enlightenment’s greatest writers, philosophers, and mathematicians.  I really really wanted to go inside the Panthéon, but I hadn’t even reached the half-way point of my walking tour and the sun was sinking in the sky informing me that I needed to start spending less time aimlessly meandering, gazing, and appreciating and more time getting from point A to point B.  So, I told myself I’d skip the Panthéon today, and come back in a couple days when Ellie arrived thinking she would probably enjoy the area too. 

I skipped out on visiting a church around the corner from the Panthéon because it was out of the way for my next destination and the remains that it contains weren’t of particular ideological importance to me.  Thus, I zig-zagged my way across the left bank, cutting through the Jardin du Luxembourg which was really quite beautiful.  The weather was fantastic so I couldn’t resist sitting down for a few minutes to soak up a bit of the beloved sunshine which I have so dearly missed in London.  Not long after, I stumbled upon the gorgeous church Saint-Sulpice and had to walk through.  The sheer number of beautiful churches in Europe never ceases to amaze me since in America most churches are pretty average looking buildings with a few rare exceptions. 

My next stop was to admire the École Militaire before continuing along the long walk to the Trocadéro for the amazing view of the Eiffel Tower.

By the time I got to this point, I was so exhausted from all that walking I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel.  I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the room; I had quite low expectations since it was one of the cheapest single rooms I could find online.    

I also had my own private bathroom which I hadn’t expected but was very welcome.  Everything seemed like a normal hotel until the next morning when I left the lady at reception asked me to leave my key with her.  Now, I have since discovered that this is considered normal in parts of the world such as Mexico and France, but at the time I was really freaked out.  I asked the lady, how am I going to get my key back that night. She assured me that someone would be at the desk 24 hours, but that wasn’t my real concern.  I complained that anyone off the street could come and ask for my key and gain access into my room potentially stealing all my stuff, or worse.  She laughed off my concerns as ridiculous saying that she would recognize me and wouldn’t let anyone else have my key.  Still, I was skeptical.  Sure enough, that night when I got back, there was a different person who I had never seen before sitting at the desk.  I asked for my room key and he handed it over, no ID check or anything.  Maybe it’s just really American of me to feel nervous about something like that, but what the heck that’s still the sketchiest room key situation I’ve ever found myself in.  Thankfully, none of my stuff was stolen and I never found a rapist in my room, so I guess it’s safe enough.  It still creeps me out though. 

Anywho, on my second day, I slept in and took my time getting ready in the morning.  I started out the day returning to the Trocadero, where I had finished my day before.  The nearby Passy cemetery was my first stop.  This cemetery is the final resting place of Debussy and many of Paris’s finest.  The tombs themselves are all beautiful.  Many families have built entire mini-chapel mausoleums where several generations have found their final resting place.  The ground is elevated and has a beautiful view of the city.  I was surprised to see that the funeral is still in use with graves dated as recently as 2011.  Not surprisingly these were all within generations old family mausoleums; I can’t even imagine how expensive it would be to buy into that cemetery now.  Next up I walked to the Maison de Balzac (author of the Comedie Humaine, Eugenie Grandet, Cyrano de Bergerac and other such greats) only to be sorely disappointed to find it under construction. 

My next destination was the Wine Museum which proved surprisingly difficult to find.  It’s tucked away at the end of a dead end street accessed only by other dead end streets resulting in me spending a lot more time walking than was strictly necessary.  I was quite pleased when I did find it though.  I was especially proud when I walked in and talked to the guy at the front desk in French.  He even handed me a French audio guide until I politely asked if I could have one in English.  I was so proud of myself for speaking French!  Each time I talked to someone, I got a little more confident and I remembered a little bit more.  The museum itself was also pretty cool.  They had lots of artifacts from wine makers of old and different shaped wine glasses from throughout the ages.  You may be surprised to find out that the “stemmed” wine glasses are a fairly recent invention in wine drinking history.  At the end of the visit, I got to taste a glass of a French wine.  I wish he had told me more about the region, the grapes, and how it was made, but alas, it was still a pretty good tasting wine.  It was definitely worth the visit!

At this point, I’ve tasted a fairly broad range of wines.  I’ve made it my personal mission to learn as much as I can about wine while in Europe.  The crazy thing is, the more I learn about it, the more I realize that I don’t know anything about wine!   I still feel overwhelmed reading a wine list or walking into a wine store.  There are simply too many appellations, varietals and production techniques for me to ever possibly learn all of them.  So, when I look at a wine list, I can recognize the few that I’ve tasted before, but it always seems like there’s 10 that I haven’t even heard of!  I’m always searching for new appellations and varietals to try out.  I’ve found it easier to pick out which wines I don’t like, and I can say with certainty that I don’t like wines from the Pouilly Fumé region in France.  Describing what I like is significantly more difficult.  In Spain, the waiter recommended a wine that was fabulous.  But since the waiter picked it out off the list, I have no idea which region it came from.  Generally speaking, I’ve come to the realization that a cheap bottle of French or Italian wine is always better than a cheap bottle of Australian wine.  But, for some unfortunate reason, Australian wine is always cheapest in London so I keep drinking it even though I’m not particularly enamored with it.  I’m definitely going to start looking for more Spanish wine because it’s generally cheaper than French and Italian wine being less renowned for wine but of similar quality. 

One fun way to explore different wines is to go to Whole Foods in London where they have a wine bar that’s like a soda fountain.  Basically, they have about 20 different bottles of wine in a glass case hooked up to a dispensing machine.  You can grab a glass from the rack on, then insert your whole foods wine bar card, then push the button to dispense however much wine you want.  The smallest option is a 25 mL which is just barely enough to taste the wine, but it’s great because it’s really cheap.  Sometimes I’ll put £15 on my card and try upwards of 10 different wines that would be way more expensive if I were to buy a full sized glass of each.  The point is, I have been making the most of my time in Europe to try as many different wines as possible!

Well, to get back on the subject of Paris, my final stop of the day was the Monet museum.  This little treasure is something I found recommended in my guidebook.  Compared to the more famous Paris art museums, it is pretty small, but that didn't mean the collection was at all lacking!  The name is slightly misleading as there all kinds of amazing impressionist art works housed there by many artists other than Monet.  In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the beautiful art and bought a print to bring home.  

When I returned home to the hotel, I made use of the free wifi to check Facebook, and to my surprise, I saw a post from Ellie.  She had posted that she was already at the airport and that she was excited to be on her way to Europe.  "On her way to Europe? I didn't think she was coming until Sunday," I thought to myself.  So, I checked the copy of her itinerary that she had sent me, and sure enough, she left St. Louis on Friday night to arrive Saturday morning.  Thank goodness she had posted about her departure on Facebook!  Otherwise I would have had no idea that she was actually arriving on Saturday.  And with that revelation, I went to sleep prepared to wake up early in the morning to meet Ellie at Gare du Nord.

And since this post is already quite long, that's it for this one!  All of my Paris adventures with Ellie will be covered in Part 2 yet to come.

Morocco Part 2

Next up, we reached the Volubilis site.  Oddly enough, this was the first time I had ever seen Roman ruins in person and I was in the middle of Morocco!  Who would have thought?  From afar, it didn’t seem that big, but walking through I realized that it was actually huge.  We spent an hour walking through the city and we didn’t even cover everything. 

I was amazed at how well preserved the site was.  Unlike Rome where a modern city has grown over the ancient ruins to replace them, the site of the Roman ruins in Morocco has been fairly untouched.  Walking through the city I really felt transported back in time.  Here is the main street. 

At the end there was a huge gate, what would have been one of the main entrances into the city.  It was absolutely massive and still essentially intact.  Now that’s what I call good engineering!  That has a lot to do with why I’m so obsessed with the ancient Romans.

It’s not too difficult to imagine what the street would have been like in its prime with arches all along it.

And like every Roman city, this one had a forum.

Here we are sitting on the steps.  One of the ancient Emperors could have once stood exactly where we were sitting!!!

Walking through the site, it’s easy to identify where the walls to buildings were.  Sometimes the walls were still high enough to feel like you’re walking into someone’s bedroom.  Here, for example, you can still see the mosaic floor tiles.

There were so many different mosaics throughout the city.  I didn’t think that the Romans really used mosaics that frequently but I suppose that they are simply evidence of adding a Moroccan flair to the Roman style.  The city also contained public baths.  Here we are lounging in them.

And here’s a trench bathroom.  Even with all their great engineering, the ancient Romans didn’t have flushing toilets.  But alas, you can still sit on them and feel like you’re taking part in the lifestyle of ancient Rome!

And for someone a bit more wealthy, a private bathtub, completely covered in mosaics.

And here I am just chillin’, like standing in the ruins of a city that’s part of my favorite ancient civilization is really no big deal (I was secretly…okay not so secretly…freaking out inside).

Our final site of the day was the royal city of Meknes.  Just outside the gates there was a huge lake.

The gate itself was actually really cool too.

Inside, we visited the ancient granaries and former stables.  These are apparently well known throughout Morocco but as I know very little about the history of Morocco, I wasn’t familiar with them.  They are apparently important.

We walked around Meknes a bit and had lunch there, but basically a medina is a medina.  There are so subtle differences, but for the most part they are pretty similar.  The architecture throughout seems pretty uniform to Western eyes.  For example, the Moroccan style of arches can be found everywhere as shown in this picture. 

On our drive back into Fez, we stopped by the royal palace at Fez.  Fez isn’t the capital, but as a royal city they house a royal palace where the royal family can sometimes go on vacation.

For our last day, we decided to try out the traditional Arabic bath called a “hammam.”  Hammams can be found throughout the Arab world and traditionally they are public baths, separated by gender, but in essence very similar to the ancient Roman public baths.  In the Arab world, however, they are still very popular.  Multiple generations will often go together to help scrub and clean each other before important events such as weddings.  The cool thing about Moroccan cities is that the idea of a “hammam” has been Westernized into a kind of Arabic spa in the Nouvelle Villes.  Two of our fellow female travelers at the riad recommended a place called Nausikaa Spa so we figured we would try it out. 

It turned out to be absolutely amazing.  We paid the equivalent of about $28 for a complete spa treatment.  We started out in the sauna relaxing and hanging out.  They give you a special oil soap to use to start out with.  Then we got a complete head to toe rose scented mud exfoliating scrub.  The dead skin was rolling off of me in these nasty brown beads.  I felt like I was being erased and all the eraser bits were rolling off my skin only the eraser bits were all my dead skin.  After she finished scrubbing me off and rinsing me I felt so relaxed and clean.  My skin was so soft and rejuvenated.  After rinsing off with the special soap, spending a little more time in the sauna and a quick dip in the cold water Jacuzzi, I was wishing that I had paid the extra $15 for a half-hour massage.  Honestly, I have no idea why I didn’t.  Next time I go to Morocco, I am definitely getting the massage.  I mean, it was so cheap compared to what you would pay for something equivalent in the U.S.!  On this trip we’re going to Budapest and one of the things Topdeck recommends to try out on the free day is to try out the traditional Arabic hammams.  I think that I’m definitely going to go again and to try to convince as many other people to go with me as possible! 

It would have been easy to spend all day there, but alas, we still had a few other things we wanted to try and see.  We looked for a museum that my guidebook recommended and ended up stopping in a hotel next door that had the same name.  Apparently the museum was closed, but the guy at the front desk invited us to look around the hotel.  It turned out to be gorgeous.

The central courtyard

A ceiling in one of the lounges

A traditional decorated wooden ceiling

Traditional plaster decorations on a wall

More mosaic work on a wall

Finally, the last thing on our list was to get henna!  We wondered around the medina till we found a place.  We didn’t have much time since we had to get to the airport, so unfortunately we had to rush the lady doing the designs but it still looked pretty cool!  We also didn’t get to leave the henna on our skin for as long as you’re supposed to since we had to pack up and get to the airport but it still lasted for a couple weeks! 

All in all, Morocco ended up being a great trip!  The only thing that I wish had been different is that I had been able to communicate with the locals more easily.  It was always obvious that I was a Westerner and I felt like I could never break past the barrier of tourist and host.  The next time I go to Morocco, I want to go to one of the beaches and possibly stay in the Nouvelle Ville rather than inside the medina.  Staying in the medina was great for my first time in Morocco, and it’s cheaper than staying in the Nouvelle Ville, but all the hustle and bustle is very exhausting, especially travelling as a pair of women.  Men would always be calling out to us and trying to sell us stuff, even if we ignored them.  I’m sure the beaches like Casablanca are beautiful.  Alas, I’ll have to go back someday. 

I hope you can understand why this post took me so long to write.  I had almost 200 photos to sort through and typed up in Microsoft Word these two posts together took up 8.5 pages!  I spend a lot of time selecting the best photos to upload and resizing them for webpages.  I’m so sorry for the delay but I hope it was satisfactory!  Let me know what you think in the comments :).

Anywho, that’s it for Morocco!  There’s plenty more to come!

Morocco Part 1

Hello from Vienna, Austria!  My post about Morocco ended up being super long and containing a bunch of pictures, so I divided it into two posts so that my blog will load faster.  Anywho, here it is, finally!

It seems like ages ago that I went to Fez, Morocco.  I flew there on the afternoon of February 23.  Morocco is part of the North Africa region that was conquered by the Arabs.  It forms the other half of the Strait of Gilbraltar with Spain and is how the Arab armies were able to reach the southern-most tip of Spain.  It is literally the most Western tip of the Arab world and figuratively the most Western in that it is far more open and friendly with the West than the rest of the Arab world.  Even though it is so close to Spain, getting off the plane you instantly feel the difference between the Western and Eastern influence. 

The first night we met the owner of the hotel at the gates of the medina so he could lead the way and went straight to the hotel.  Our hotel was inside the medina where you can’t drive cars, so we got dropped off at Bab Boulejold and followed from there.

Bab Boulejold, translated to Blue Gate:

Basically, the medina is the oldest part of a Moroccan city; in the case of Fez, one of the royal cities meaning that it houses a palace for the royal family, the medina dates back over a thousand years.  The cool thing about Fez is that it was recently named a UNESCO world heritage site and ever since then a lot of money has been put into restoring the ancient architecture of the city.  The medina was developed long before cars existed so the streets were never designed to be wide enough for cars.  The medina is like a maze through buildings, all about five or six stories high so you feel more like you’re in a tunnel.  Sometimes the buildings are actually built over the streets so you really are walking through a tunnel.  That first night it would have been impossible for us to find our way to the hotel without a guide because it would be impossible to truly map the medina since there are so many tiny alleys and dead ends, plus most of the streets don’t even have names.  Thankfully the people at the hotel were cooking that night because we would have never been able to find our way around!  So, we just hung out there, ate dinner, drank delicious Moroccan tea, and got to know a bunch of our fellow travelers!    

We booked our hotel online through hostelworld.com, but it wouldn’t be really correct to call it by Western terms a “hostel” or a “hotel.”  Really, it was a “riad,” and old Arabic term that is generally translated to hotel.  It’s basically an architectural style where you have a central courtyard which is open up to the sky.  In our case, they had a gazebo tent over the opening on the terrace level to protect the ground floor from rain, but all four levels still opened up to fresh air.  Our hotel had recently been restored and all the mosaic work was gorgeous and very well done.  In fact, it was one of the nicest hotels that I’ve stayed at in all my travels, and it was also one of the cheapest. 

Check out this tile work:

And the fountain inside:

What’s interesting about the Moroccan style of architecture is that it feels somewhat “inside-out” from a Western perspective.  In the West, I’m used to the streets feeling open so that you can see the sky and feel like you have space then you go inside for shelter and a more cozy atmosphere.  In Morocco, it’s completely the opposite.  The streets are so narrow you can hardly ever see the sky and there are so many people pushing and shoving it’s crazy.  Even in the heart of downtown Chicago with some of the tallest sky scrapers you can always look up and see the sky and feel like you’re walking through open air.  In Morocco where the buildings are hardly ever more than six stories tall, you still feel like you’re walking through a caged maze.  Then, you walk inside the “riad” and suddenly everything is open and airy.  Sunshine is pouring into the courtyard and all the noise and bustle of the streets seems to fade away.  Going up to the top floor and sitting on the terrace was my favorite.  The weather was perfect, hot enough to feel comfortable in a t-shirt but not too hot to start sweating, and the sun was magnificent.  I hadn’t realized how much I missed the sun in dreary London until I got a taste of the great Moroccan sun. 

Another thing that makes the streets feel caged in is that sometimes they put wood “roofs” over them such as the one shown in the picture below.  Cats roam the medina freely and we often saw them making their way over these “roofs.”  One time we even heard a full on cat fight happening on top of one!

Our first night, we had a great time eating delicious Moroccan food and getting to know our fellow travelers, even without leaving our hotel.  The courtyard on the ground floor provided a great place to hang out, drink some of the addictive Moroccan tea, and relax.  We met some people who had been backpacking Europe for months and their Schengen visas (the agreement that allows you to travel to multiple European countries on one visa) were expiring so they had to leave the Schengen area for a while.  Pretty much everyone there seemed to be a wayward traveler exploring the world.  I was surprised at how many people had given up their jobs back home to spend a year or more traveling and living off their savings.  I’ve only been in Europe for four months and my savings have already taken a severe hit!  Many of them didn’t have plans for what they would do when they finished traveling but they all seemed to have adventurous spirits.  I guess it’s just the logical engineer in me that would never be able to simply give up everything for a year and simply travel without any plans or itinerary or anything but at the same time it seems like a very romanticized idea. 

For our first day, we organized an official guide through the tourism office to show us around the medina.  It was definitely a good decision since we would never have been able to find all the different places on our own!  Our first stop was at one of the leather tanneries, a type of craftsmanship for which Fez is famous.  The smells of the dyes that they use are absolutely awful so when you get up to the terrace overlooking the tanneries they give you a little mint leaf to hold in front of your nose.  It helps, but the stench is still pretty awful.  At one step of the process, they mix in pigeon droppings because it helps for some reason.  In this picture you can see all the different colors.  Some of the milky colored ones are baths to remove the fur from the hides. 

This shows a big stack of hides and a large wheel that they use to spin and wash the hides.

Here you can see the hides hanging to dry.  In the windows are the rooms where the women work on sewing the hides into sellable goods.

And here I am overlooking it all, temporarily not holding my mint leaf to my nose for the photo.

I spent WAY too much in the tannery but I got a great cross body satchel that I love and use all the time so I guess it was worth it!  I have a cross body travel purse which is great for traveling when I don’t want to carry too much, but sometimes I want to bring around my guidebook or my London A-Z or a water bottle and my travel purse just isn’t quite big enough.  I can also fit my laptop in my leather satchel so if I ever want to bring it around I can! 

Throughout the medina, there is such detailed mosaic work everywhere.  Everything is decorated in the most detailed patterns.  There are also fountains throughout the medina with water that comes directly from aqueducts outside the city.  For example, check this one out:

On our tour, we also went and saw a few mosques.  Mosques that are still in use are not open to non-Muslims, so unfortunately we never got to see the inside of most of them.  There are a few, however, that are no longer active mosques where we were allowed to walk inside and take pictures. 

Here I am inside a mosque with my brave travel companion, Olivia.

Another view of a mosque

Our guide explained that green is the holy color of Islam, so holy buildings such as mosques and religious universities always have green roofs.  Here is a famous university, the first university in Morocco.  As it is a religious building, it is topped by a green roof.

We were not allowed to enter the building, but we were able to look through the outer gate.  Our guide explained to us that the two sets of stairs lead up to the two different sections of the university.  The green stairs led up to the religious part while the blue (the color of Fez) stairs led up to the secular part.  Here are the green stairs.

We also stopped by a fabric making shop.  Like everything in the medina, it is all handmade according to ancient traditions.  Here is a man working on a loom.

As always on that tour, I ended up spending more than I meant to, but I got a great purple fabric.  My room in London was really lacking for purple since I got a pretty bland white and green duvet cover.  So, now I can put my purple fabric over my duvet and it keeps me a little bit warmer and brightens up the color quite a bit!  The fabric is silky so it’s smooth to the touch and it rolls up in a nice tight cylinder so it doesn’t take up too much room.  At another stop on the tour we visited a sort of perfume and spice shop.  We got to watch a couple of girls grinding argan nuts into argan oil.  The argan tree is a particular type of knotted bent-over looking tree which grows only in the Morocco region.  It’s very popular in cosmetics.  I wasn’t sure I believed that since I had never heard of the argan tree before until I was at a perfumery in France and they mentioned the argan oil that they use in their products.  So, I figure it’s legit!  I got a couple bars of soap, some perfume bars, some tea, and some smelling salt-type things which are supposed to help clear your nasal passages. 

Our guide also took us into an old courtyard to demonstrate the traditional Moroccan household style.  The home has now been turned into shops, but just like our “riad,” the central courtyard was open to the sky and the bedrooms all had windows looking into the courtyard. 

Along the way, we stopped at a carpet shop while our guide went to Friday prayer.  The owners of the shop offered us Moroccan mint tea to drink while we sat on the terrace to appreciate the great view of the whole medina. 

As you can see in this picture, all the buildings are built up on top of each other.  Looking down from above, it’s like looking at a bunch of squares and rectangles all fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.  Almost every building has a terrace and a courtyard.  Sometimes the only way to feel like you’re “outside” is by going inside and sitting on a terrace or at a courtyard since the streets are so crowded, narrow, and dimly lit.  Beyond the medina, you can see the hills in this photo.

For dinner that night, we wondered close to Bab Boulejould where there are many shops and restaurants that cater to the many westerners who enter the medina through this gate.  I ordered couscous since it is a Moroccan specialty even though I don’t normally like couscous.  To my great surprise, it was absolutely delicious!  Pretty much all the food that I had in Morocco was great even though I was hesitant since I don’t normally like Middle-Eastern food. 

In addition to the medinas, another aspect of a Moroccan city is the so-called “Nouvelle Ville.”  When Morocco was a French colony, the French came in and built roads, Churches, shops, and other Western amenities right outside of the old Medinas.  French is also taught in all the schools and more Moroccans speak French than English.  This gave me a chance to practice my French a bit!  I did find that the Moroccan accent was a bit difficult to understand sometimes, but most of the time I was able to get by.  Here you can see a bit of the western influence in this fountain in the Ville Nouvelle. 

For our second day, we heard that close to the city of Fez, we could also visit Moulay Idriss, an ancient holy city, Meknes, another royal city, and Volubilis, a site containing ruins from an ancient Roman city.  I knew that the ancient Romans had conquered the coast of North Africa, but I had no idea that they had settled and built cities as far inland as Fez!  If anything, that just goes to show how awesome ancient Rome was!  Anyway, we hired a driver for the day to take us to these near-by sites and be our quasi tour guide.  He didn’t speak English, so this was the true test of my French-speaking abilities.  Along the way, we stopped by this nice lake just outside Fez.  From what I could understand, I believe it provides some of the water for the city.

Our first stop was just outside of Moulay Idriss.  From my guidebook, this city is supposedly a pilgrimage site because it contains a particularly holy mosque.  We didn’t actually go into the medina, but we drove through the outskirts and got a good look.

And here we are.

At one point, our driver saw this bird and had to stop so we could take pictures.  I couldn’t really understand why this bird is important, but our driver seemed very interested in it.