29.06.18

A reasonably timed train trip today with our train leaving Tangier at 10.30 bound for Fes (direct train). We had our brekky in our Riad before we headed down to the train station via taxi. Purchased our tix and waited around for the train to arrive.

We were pleasantly surprised to be joined in our compartment by an American woman who had lived in Morocco for many years and was married to a Moroccan man. She regaled us with tales of living in Tangier in the 70s and was able to answer many of our questions about Morocco that we hadn’t been able to get answered by guides. It meant that our five hour trip to Fes flew by as we chatted away the kilometres. Arrived into Fes mid afternoon where we stopped to work out where we were going (the Fes Medina is famous for being a rabbit warren and we thought a taxi wouldn’t be able to completely take us to our hotel so we wanted to have a map handy) and to buy our return tix to Casablanca for two days time (:( holidays are nearly over..)

Leaving the shiny new train station (Fes and Marrakech are the two that have already been done up and Tangier, Casablanca and Rabat are works in progress) we jumped in a petite taxi and headed into the Medina to our hotel. Five minutes later and $5 and we arrived at our Riad for our two night stay in Fes. Our Riad is actually just out of the Medina gates so it was actually very easy for us to navigate our way to our hotel. This Riad isn’t quite as opulent as the one in Marrakech but it is also nearly 50% the price so both of us weren’t expecting another Taj Mahal! It is however, very nice and if we hadn’t stayed in the spectacular one we would have thought this was five star!

Before heading out for the afternoon we decided to have a little relax and a freshen up. During our relaxing time I hopped on the internet to see if I could find the closest hammam (so want to get in at least one more before we head out of Morocco) and discovered that one of the best ones in Fes was available that evening! Straight away we booked ourselves in and then googled good western food in Fes (soooo sick of Tajine). Also organised with our hotel to book us a guide for the Medina for the next day, so with all our jobs done for the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk around the Medina before our hammam and then have some dinner afterwards at the Cinema Café.

First thing we both commented on is how clean the Fes Medina is (or at least this part of the Medina).. streets are spotlessly clean, no rubbish/ dirt anything to be seen! Such a change from Casablanca or even Marrakech.. even better than Tangier (where we both thought it was pretty good).

We’re staying near the Bab Bo Jeloud and it must be a bit of a touristy area because there are plenty of market stalls that are catering to ye ole tourist rather than the locals.. even with the market stalls there doesn’t feel to be too much of the pushy “you come into my shop, you lookie, lookie” style hustling that we’ve grown more than accustomed to in Morocco. We’d both heard plenty of people say to us to be careful in the Fes Medina as it is so big and so easy to get lost so we stuck to some fairly main roads and more than managed to navigate our way around.

Turned up to our hammam to enjoy some luxury. This hammam is housed within a Riad (actually our own hotel has its own hammam so we may end up testing that one out too) and we were welcomed into the courtyard for a cool drink whilst the ladies prepared the space. Headed downstairs to the hammam to change out of our clothes and into our bathrobes, plastic undies + flip flops and then it was washing time. The process starts with you entering into the sauna and lying down on a marble slab, the women then rub you down with black soap (oily come waxy substance that sort of reminds me in looks of ear wax but has a lovely fragrance ), then it is “relax” time (at least 5mins in the sauna), then wash off with the ladies pouring small bucket loads of water over your skin and then it is scrub time. At this point the ladies don very rough gloves (rougher than our wash mits) and scrub up and down your skin so that large black rolled up pieces of dead skin appear all over your body. Its pretty gross but man it feels good when they’ve finished. Then it is time for the grey clay to be smeared over your clean skin and more “relaxing”. Finally the ritual finishes with the clay being washed off with soap and water and your hair washed. By the time this is all done you are squeaky clean and feel super duper refreshed!

We cooled down back in the garden patio with a cold beer before we walked up to the rooftop to see the surrounds of Fes and then on to find some dinner. We’d both worked up an appetite so were hanging out for some food. As I said earlier we had previously googled up some western food and were not disappointed when we arrived at Cinema Café. It is clearly owned by someone from the west because the menu is largely burgers, fries, pizza, pasta with some Moroccan tajines’ thrown in for good measure. S ordered the camel burger, I went for an ordinary beef one and they were delicious!! Soo good to have some ordinary food again.

Before we left the Medina for the evening we went around the corner to check out another of the hammam joints (I was tossing up which one to go to when I booked the Riad earlier that day). The hammam was a mixture of local/ private and we were taken on a tour of the hammam so that we could get a feel for how it all works (fortunately there was no-one using the public one at the time). The public hammam was really beautiful inside- a mixture of Japanese Onsen, western sauna and Turkish marble slabs so perfect for what I had been looking for… an authentic experience without the real basic-ness of an Islamic hammam. We immediately booked in for both of us to attend the following evening (S to do a private hammam and me to do the public—we’ve booked for 7pm and at that time it is women only with a massage afterwards). This hammam being public means that the price is way cheaper so for the price of a hammam and massage we’re getting the same as what we paid today just for the hammam.

With tomorrow completely booked up- tour of Fes Medina in day and Hammam/ Massage at night- we flopped into bed for a well deserved sleep to be ready for a big day tomorrow!