Day 16: Thami and Dar Hatim

One of the best decision that we made when we arrived in Fez was to hire a guide to take us through the city.   The Fes Yamanda recommended a guide named Thami (pronounced similar to Tommy) who had lived in Fez his entire life.    He took us on a walking tour of the extensive Souks in Fez.  Fez is known for its complex system of Souks.  They are organized in a complex maze format and it is very easy - and common - to get lost in them and not be able to find your way out.  :-)

Thami told us that there were over 83,000 Souks in the Fez medina.   He also told us that there are over 1000 alleyways within the Medina.... many of them very narrow and sometimes dark.   At first I didn't believe that this was possible but after walking through them for almost 7 hours, I could believe that it was this large.

Unlike the Souks in Marrakech and Rabat, in Fez they are organized by having similar vendors located on the same street or area.   They also have both buyers and sellers located together.   There were much fewer tourists in Fez and it was more like a large, internal marketplace for the city.    We also noticed that there was much less pressure to buy anything.

I think we all decided afterwards that the Fez Souks were our favorite.

Thami beginning his tour by taking us to the ancient water clocks.   Here he was explaining how they used to work.

This is a picture of the water clocks.   Notice that there is one window for each hour of the day.

Thami leading us through the alleyways of the Fez Souk market.

This is a picture of a man baking bread within one of the rooms located off of the Souk alleyways.   There were many similar shops where homemade bread was being made.

Unlike the other Souk markets that we had visited in Morocco, donkeys are used in Fez to transport goods within the Souk area.   Thami told us that there were over 5000 donkeys within the Fez souk area.   This was one of the many we saw.  You definitely had to watch where you stepped when walking around.  :-)

We saw many children playing in the streets while walking around on Saturday.   I loved this picture of the three little boys.

Thami lead us through the alleyways to this unmarked door that only had the number 19 on it.   Although there was no sign on the door, this was a restaurant located within a Riad where a family with two small boys lived.    You will see from the pictures below that it was very beautiful inside.

This was the restaurant located in the lobby area of the Riad.   We later asked for a buisness card and found out that this restaurant is called Restaurant Dar Hatim.   This is Gerant who is the husband who owned the Riad and served us a delicious lunch.

It was a pre-set menu (very common in all of the Riad restaurants that we have visited) and the first course was a combination of 9 different salads.   It included everything from carrots, beets, potatoes, eggplant, lentils, etc.   I could have made a meal just off of the salads.....

Group picture at lunch.

This is a picture of a chicken pastillo which is a very common meal in Morocco.   It is a meat mixture inside of a thin pastry with sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top.   It is common to have pigeon pastillo also but so far none of us have been brave enough to try it.   This was very delicious.

Picture of our fruit dessert.   I almost hated to eat it because it looked so pretty.