As the name of the post implies, our artisan tour of Fez continues!

From our brocade artist we popped pretty much across the street to see some tile makers. We had of course been admiring mosaics all across Spain and Morocco at this point, but now it was time to see them made. Fez, as a city, does really support its artists and artisans, and these mosaic makers were housed in a nice new workshop in brightly renovated building. Except what I found funny is that they still did it the old-fashioned way despite the new-fashioned space. You see I was surprised to learn that the first part of mosaic making is to chip all the tiles into the correct shape. The mosaics are made up of all sorts of different shapes, like 8-pointed stars and 12-sided platters and ribbons and lots and lots of others. I had assumed the tiles were just molded in that shape? Like there was a little star mold and they stuck the clay in there to form it into that shape and then fired and glazed it in that shape? But no, what happens is these guys take square tiles, like you would tile your bathroom with or something, and using a hammer they chip them into the appropriate shape.

So what these guys were doing in their large, bright, airy workshop was sitting in one corner sitting on cushions and facing each other, chipping away at tiles while watching YouTube videos as piles of rubble and the raw materials of mosaics piled up around them. It was very old-fashioned and extremely impressive and I liked it a lot. It took a lot of skill to break a tile in just the right way to get just the right shape, and to do it thousands and thousands of times over and over again all day, every day. As I was standing there they carved up a little heart with my super amazing wife’s initial on it for me to give to her. Really just phenomenal skill. Later, they will assemble their many thousands of pieces into a mosaic inside of a mold and then cement them all into place for something like a table, or else for a wall mosaic it will be created in place. Artisans!

Since my super amazing wife was interested in textiles our tour could not help but go through the dyeing street. This felt like the most medieval thing we saw, in that it felt most untouched by the centuries. Like I marveled at in the last post every part of the supply chain is in this town, so those weavers weaving their beautiful cloths are getting the beautiful fibers they are weaving with here from the dyers. They still use vegetable dyes and we popped into one shop with his simmering vats of fibers undergoing the process. Then to get rid of the leftover dye they toss the water into the street where it goes down the drains down there. With the shade and the cramped space it was really a throw-back and downright magical.

But this, finally, brought us to the end of our artisan tour because it was time to go rug shopping. We knew we wanted to leave Fez with a rug so this was exciting. Our guide took us to a big ole’ rug emporium where we were treated to a whole rug-buying experience. First we got to see how some of them were made; upstairs was a woman weaving a rug, tying knots directly onto the warp to create the designs. My super amazing wife got to give it a go and the lady was very patient. Alone she operated at warp speed. But then it was time for the shopping. They sat us down in one of the alcoves lined with rugs and started unfurling rugs for us to look at. We saw Fez carpets, “magic carpets,” and our favorite were the traditional Berber carpets. There was a wool Berber carpet that I liked but was more than we were prepared to spend. Eventually they busted out a beautiful agave silk Berber rug which we settled on. Our guide declared the one we picked the most beautiful of the lot though I think we was just getting a little tired of watching us shop (he denied it). As I went off to pay for the rug the salesman tried once again to up-sell me, now that I was away from my presumably more fiscally responsible wife, and I admired the hustle. Souvenir in hand, and heads full of dazzling artistry, our guide brought us back to our hotel and our artisan tour came to an end. It was really really great and you should definitely go to Fez and check it out yourself.

BUT! The day was not over. The tour had brought us to slightly past lunch and boy were we hungry. Following the guidebook I dragged us over to Cafe Clock because their camel burger is apparently famous and I wanted to eat a burger made from a famous camel. The cafe is an amusing spot. It is wild to find; as we walked through the medina I thought we had overshot it but then found a sign pointing us down a dark alley. We went further then expected only to stumble into the restaurant. We wanted a table on the roof and got it, bursting out into the sun and admiring the view. The best part were the cats, which were everywhere. The staff kept trying to chase them away but based on the results I think it was more of a game for the sake of us tourists than anything else. A beautiful calico posted up next to us for a bit which was nice. The camel burger was pretty good though I only got to have half of one; we ordered two and the second never came and we spent two hours there. In the abstract I like the thought of a long lunch, though I started to get grumpy before the burger which I chalked up to being hungry. Once sated I was still a little grumpy, so I think my real issue is simply that I am American and don’t know how to relax. Unlike the very cute cats. Also though on American-ness the guy at the table over from us ate his burger with a fork and knife and like, man. America really is the greatest country in the world and what the hell is everyone else doing. Anyway.

Our final major destination for the day was the Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts & Crafts, housed in what was once the carpenters’ market. No pictures allowed except of the interior courtyard, so sorry. It took us a bit to find the place but we eventually got there. The part I liked best about the museum is they had tons of displays of all sorts of different wooden tools that we had just seen that morning still being used on our artisan tour. History and the present colliding through the power of tradition! Other cool things were decorated wooden hammers used for breaking up sugar blocks, and I learned the intricate tiered shelves I had been admiring all over the city are called “marfa.” The crown jewels of the museum had to be the stuff on the top floor, which includes a funerary stele from tomb of the saint Sidi Ali Al-Hajjam in cedarwood, and 17th century boards carved with customary laws. Super cool to see!

And then with that, finally, our day was over. We were going to go hang out by the pool in the Riad but I got us lost (again) on the way back and after taking a very circuitous route we were too pooped to do even that. A lovely dinner at the hotel though and another beautiful sunset capped off our excellent first full day in Fez.