A Walk in the Fez Mellah, and Some Glasses

They can be found here, in this dead-end of the Fez Mellah, just in front of this small hotel…

They caught our eye, then we began to pity them, but the next minute they amused us.

They would really need a good doctor though.

- You can take a virtual walk in the Fez mellah just by clicking here. You won’t regret it, and, who knows, maybe you’ll find our dear cripples…

Bare Feet Souk

How to buy cheap furniture in Fez ? You can go to the Mellah souk, or to Bab Ftoh. But the most secret place is the Bare Feet Souk – Souk l Hafa.

And that’s where we went – and that’s where we got lost.

Souk l Hafa is the last home of all orphan, broken, and forgotten furniture of Fez.

The last home, that is, if nobody takes pity of a dresser or of a table and buys it.

In certain alleys, it seems very unlikely that it will ever happen.

Elsewhere, a succession of deserted and touching bedrooms.

When we finally found what we wanted – a cupboard for our kitchen -, we made an unexpected encounter...

Souk l Hafa is in Bendebbab, a neighborhood in Fez. If you liked it, take a walk in the rural souk of Qaria Ba Mohammed.

Shopping in Morocco : Tuesday Souk

This town was at the beginning a small village, where was held a big market every week.

Today, the souk brings together on Tuesdays local producers as well as big traders from the cities.

Arrival at the market.
People come from all the area in those small trucks.

Here you can buy furniture...


... and all kind of second-hand stuff as well.

Scrub palm, which leaves are very resistant, is used for making mats, baskets...


... and also for making bardâa, pack-saddles for donkeys or jennys (this Arabic word gave the French word "barda", an informal term for luggage)



This is a seyer, which is for cleaning the wheat from its chaff.

Those sieves are for the flour.

The gerouet serve for carrying the water from the well. There are made of tyres.

And of course, you can find all kind of colored things.











Near the butchers, the grinder.

We bought some of these. They are seeds that are sowed at that period - cucumber, melons and zucchinis.

All that hubbub is exhausting - so if you need to get some rest, you can stop and eat a sfenj, a kind of donut made of bread dough...

... or you can have a tea at the bar.


And the water-sellers are here if you want to refresh yourself before going back to your car.

Buying wood in Fez

When you build a house, you need materials. In Europe, you go to a store like Castorama (well, that's in France... I don't know about the UK or elsewhere...). In Morocco we go there:

the store

On the other side, it's not so charming.

Sidi Boujida, an excrescence of the city of Fez

We've built our house mainly with traditional materials of the region of Fez. Among these, reeds and eucalytus have been very useful. That's what we're buying today. We'll show you later what we'll do with all that stuff.

Reeds.
They're used to build floors, roofs, furniture, and a lot of other things.
















Eucalyptus.
There are different kinds of eucalyptus in Morocco. This tree grows quickly and is cheap.
It is used for floors and frameworks.
















So, let's fasten tightly the wood to the car, because the road home will be kind of difficult.


Here! The car's ready.

To get home from that place in the bottom of the medina, we have to take a little road in the mountain that we rarely take (because it's really in disrepair).

But if the car suffers a little, we're very pleased by the beautiful landscape.

In the background, Fez

It's interesting to notice that even so close to Fez, the houses on that mountain - whitewashed adobe constructions -are traditional and very similar to the houses of the remote area where we live.

Woods (some kind of pines, I guess) - surprising in that region.


Thank God we've got a car!