A Tile Factory, a Library and a Souk in Fez, Fes, Morocco

My original travel journals were split across August Phoenix Hats and a few other websites. February 2021 marked the 12th anniversary of the beginning of my travels. To keep myself sane during the pandemic lockdown, I started reissuing my journals as Director’s Cuts, with the complete text and additional photos.

My travels have taken me through Italy, Turkey and Spain. In 2017 I hit the top of my bucket list with a belated birthday gift to myself - a guided trip to Morocco. Today we learn how tiles are made, and visit one of the world’s oldest working libraries.

Wafi, our local guide for today, meets us at our hotel and rides with us to our first stop. In the car he gives us a brief history of Fez el Bali, the original medina-city.

It is the second oldest city in the world after Jerusalem, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1989. It lays claim to the first psychiatric hospital in the world, as well as the first surgical hospital, the oldest university and library (founded by a woman), and the world’s 3rd largest mosque behind Mecca and Medina. A US flag marks the veterinary hospital (also founded by a woman).

Fez has been predominately Muslim since 789; yet almost every city in Morocco has a Jewish quarter, and Fez is no exception. Our first stop is the Jewish Cemetery, one of the oldest in Morocco, dating to the 7th-8th centuries. I remarked on the square openings at the end of some of the sarcophagi, and learn that it is where a candle is lit for the dead. There’s a sad section (shown at lower right) where 500 children are buried in unmarked graves, most of them dating from the 1930s-40s, which I believe coincides with malaria and cholera epidemics that crossed North Africa during that time. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).