Per usual, after a hearty breakfast of flour-based things at our riad, we started out day. We opted to spend a couple hours focused on blog updates, given we had pretty decent internet, allowing us to upload pictures.
Afterwards, we set out to find lunch, and per the recommendation of Isabel at the front desk, we strolled down the street/alleyway to a small sandwich stand where we pointed and gestured to order a french fries sandwich, complete with salad, rice, pickled veggies, red sauce (tomato based?) and maybe something else. The point is, it was delicious.
Sitting across from the stand (and by “across” that means 6 feet away, max) two kids were watching us scarf down the sandwich, and before we finished we were following them somewhere to get tea. Down the corner and up a small set of stairs, and we find ourselves in a tiny cafe. We order our tea and a few minutes later are joined in the cafe by one of the most interesting people we’ve met: Ali. He’s probably about our age, and has never been to school — “the streets” have been his university, and it’s done him well: he speaks Spanish, French, English (surprisingly well!) and Arabic. He is an avid coin collector, and continues to curate his family’s collection that goes back several generations. More valuable to the cafe though, were his truly awesome philosopher tendencies. Though he shared many thoughts and quotable things, two stuck with us:
- “Life is like ice cream: enjoy it before it melts”
- “The trees are tall, the cows are fat, and the mind is the light”
After chatting with Ali and shaking hands with the proprietor several times, our original “guide”, one of the boys that led us there, then showed us “where they futbol” — a fancy and beautifully decorated indoor soccer pitch, tucked into the minding maze of Fes!
We then wandered to see the Blue Gate:
And the city gardens (Jardin):
We had then worked up an(other) appetite, and settled at Cafe Thami for a small ‘second lunch’ (our term, not Morocco’s) and people watching, which included an endless puff pastry maker, piles of honey sweets covered by bees, and terrace cats running amuck at our feet.
Then we went back to the riad hotel to drop our things and walk over for our hammam (traditional Turkish-style scrub bath and massage). However… there was a tragic hammam mixup and somehow our reservation was never recorded in the books. This combined with the fact that someone else was confirmed during the same time slot mean that we were out of luck and could not get the hammam 🙁 We were crushed as there was no chance to reschedule, and while the profuse apologies from several of the staff helped, we were still bummed.
Luckily, we still had a reservation for dinner at Ruined Garden, an outdoor patio restaurant in a semi-overgrown garden. We had called the day before to request a very traditional roast lamb dish that takes 8 hours of slow roasting to prepare. In short, it was ginormous but a great challenge to eat since we were given what could have been the dullest knives of all time.
Regardless, we put some elbow grease into it and filled our bellies. The lamb was tasty, but the highlight of the meal was definitely the beverages: fresh orange-peach juice, and date-milk, which was like a thin date milkshake.
From there we were walked back to our riad (the only way to ensure we were not lost in the labyrinth of Fes forever) and headed to the rooftop patio, where we were treated to an amazing view of the city, as well as a carpet of stars. We found a few constellations thanks to a handy app, including a new favorite: Scorpio!, and then tucked ourselves in for the night.
Click to see what we’re talking about!
-G & J