fez

Today we toured thru the old medina in Fez. It has over 9,000 streets and is was so intricate in the pathways we had to take to find the things we were looking for. We ended up in some very awesome places of worship and very awesome places of commercialism. Once down a few winding pathways, we found ourselves walk out into a fabric factory. The men were pushing out hand- made pabric of all types and sizes. There were rugs and scarves of wool, cotton, and silk. They were so gorgeous and authentic. A very neat place for us to end up because it was not touristy at all. Next we found ourselves going up a tiny stairway, thru 4 backrooms, across another hallway and ended up out on a balcony. As we looked down we saw the most amazing site:

We were at the leather tannery of the city of Fez. This is where men soak the leather in the different colored dyes for months at a time to get the rich, authentic colors. The smell was so outstanding that they had to give us each a branch of mint leaf to hold under our noses. Definitely a cool site considering when we researched this area of Northern Africa, we found many pictures of this site. Seeing all of these sites for the real thing, up close and personal is just another aspect of this trip that is indescribable by words.