Fez, Morocco - Part 1

  This last week I was privileged to be able to travel to Fez, Morocco with my company. They paid for a 4 day trip to celebrate our successful season and plan for the coming year. So it was a mix of fun activities and group meetings every day. There were about 30 of us altogether from Austin, Paris and London. 




 
Our hotel (Hotel Sahrai) was only opened 6 months ago and was very very nice. We were in shared rooms, I was in a room with Bianca, a girl from our Paris office. They had two restaurants where we had breakfast and dinner every day. Outside was a wrap around infinity pool overlooking the city, but it was much too cold to swim in. 





  We spent the morning of the first day going to the medina. A medina is a walled city within many northern african cities with small, maze-like streets free from cars and bikes. The medina in Fez is the largest car free urban area in the world. It was large and confusing and one could get lost there within a few minutes and have trouble making it out. Many of the streets were only 6 or 7 feet wide. We had our guide Achmed with us the whole time and an assistant at the back to keep us together.
  

    Our first stop was at the home of a family of weavers. The man we talked to said 4 generations of his family had been working there. They had beautiful blankets and clothes and scarves.

    After that we went to the leather tannery. There were a lot of smelly pits of dye where men were stomping on the leather in different pits. It looked like hard work. They had a lot of bags and shoes for sale all throughout the building.

 

We next went to a house where they have handmade rugs of all shapes and sizes. The sales guys were very persuasive and funny, but I didn't get anything there. They also served us wonderful tea and let us go up to the roof to see the view.

 

   For lunch, we went to a nice modern restaurant that was very good. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon meeting back at the hotel to talk about our goals. Dinner was a great Moroccan meal at the hotel restaurant. 
  Next: Day 2 - Rain!