For me Casablanca always reminded me of the movie by the same name, that and the infamous Rick’s Cafe, insert tune here “As time goes by” and the famous words, “play it again” Sam. Casablanca is of course oh so much more than this.
Casablanca is a port city and the commercial hub of western Morocco. The city’s French colonial legacy can be seen throughout the its downtown Maureseque architecture, which is a blend of Moorish style and European Art Deco. Standing partly over the water is the enormous Hassan II Mosque, completed in 1993. This Mosque has a 210 metre minaret which is topped with lasers directed toward Mecca. For us today though we broke all our usual port rules.
- If visiting a port for the first time, explore it;
- If you are exploring an area where it may be questionable that you get back on time, do a HAL sponsored tour.
Today we did a Cruise Critic sponsored tour. At the time, a few months ago, we researched the Cruise Critic site where we found this tour to Fez, Fez to us seemed like perhaps an old area of Casablanca. So without doing the research we went ahead and booked. This morning we learned that yes, it is a 9th century city but it is a 3.5 hour drive away. This turned out to be more like 4 hours each way and we were already about 2 hours late leaving thanks to the port authorities, they needed to go through the ship’s detailed records to ensure the visiting guests were not bringing Covid into there community. Our all aboard time today was 8:30pm, we left at 9 am, needless to say we were on the clock.
The tour company was great, Premier Transfers and Tours, very professional, great driver and wonderful transportation. There were 6 of us in a 12 person van, originally 8 but two backed out with concerns of getting back on time. The owner of the tour company also was there to send us off confirming our new return time but that the tour would be slightly condensed, originally we were to be back by 6pm.
The reason why we thought it was simply an extension to Casablanca was in the description.
Visit Fez while you are in Casablanca and discover the historic sights and glittering ancient and modern landmarks of Fez City. Take a step back to the Middle Ages in the city, engage your imagination, soak up the extravagant sights and the hidden delights. Sounded good to us, we jumped on it as there was room left.
Other than the long drive, which actually gave us a chance to see the Moroccan countryside, this was an excellent tour. When we did arrive in Fez, at about 1pm, we picked up our local guide and our detailed tour began. After a short outside visit to the main mosque, we headed into the 9th century Medina, very fascinating and amazing, there are still 160,000 residents living behind these old walls - shops and stalls inside this maze with residents living behind and above. We visited many of the shops and some homes with of course the shop keepers hoping that you will purchase there items for sale. So yes, we visited a carpet maker, a scarf and clothing maker, leather stores, olive and date store etc. One couple did purchase a carpet and Jan did find a purse she loved.
The highlights really were the bakery with an in-house forno oven, our included lunch, served family style and the best for last, the tannery factory, this place was amazing. The Chouara Tannery, this is a great way to see the process in motion. This ancient outdoor workshop has been around for 1,000 years. From the rooftop terrace you can see the hundreds of colourful pools, like an artists palette. The entire process can be witnessed here, from the animal skins been stripped of hair, degreased, salted and soaked to stop decomposition. Then they are further processed and dyed to create leather for jackets, bags, shoes etc. From this viewpoint you are able to see this outdoor workshop of huge stone vessels or pots, that carry the water and mix the ingredients or natural dye. Also the area of drying racks in order to dry out these colourful skins. After this visit it was time to head back to Casablanca, it was now just after 3:30 pm.
The good and the bad of this tour, the long drive but very comfortable transport with a great driver. Incredible site to see with a great tour but not enough time to immerse yourself in the experience, I just may have purchased another leather jacket and or another rug, hmm, maybe this was a good thing and not a bad. We arrived safely back to ship at 7:45pm, well ahead of the all aboard time. All in all great tour if you visiting this part of the world and you have seen Casablanca or are looking for something different.
That’s it for now, some pics of our day, hope you enjoy…
Quote of the day, “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old familiar pillow”. - Lin Yutang
Wonderful descriptions and photos
ReplyDeleteLove the colours 😊
ReplyDelete