82 N ovember 2009 = TAHIR SHAH |
PHOTOGRA : P HS JULIAN LOVE :FÊJ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX O Medersa BouInania, OPOPOPOPOPOPOP theological colleges pposite: amansits one ofFez’s finest O doorways inside and readsinthe the dilapidated ne ofthemany G laoui Palace. ornamental
= on Abdou’s brow and rolls down his dark poverty and wealth.’ a home that has known love and betrayal, Fez. It’s a place of secrets and of mystery, tobacco, ‘and this is one of the hearts of voice moulded by a fondness for Turkish is the heart of this kingdom,’ he says in a of wisdom that tumble from his lips. ‘Fez teaches us to ask, and to listen to the pearls questions that an Occidental education way to appreciate his home is to forget the the years, I’ve come to learn that the best when asked what its future might bring. widens his eyes. He gives the same response looks away, stares across the heat haze and there, or if he actually owns the palace, he recall. If you ask him whether he was born lived at the Glaoui for as long as he can A single drop of perspiration wells up After visiting Abdou, as I have done over 9 KK?<>I<8K G laoui Palace Another twist to the right and one to the excuse his disapproval for housework. fingers towards the inch-thick dust as if to range of empty tin cans. Abdou flicks his size of spades, old kettles and a mountain it there’s a clutter of cauldrons, ladles the stands at the far end of the room; beneath VIII’s Hampton Court. A colossal chimney kitchen that’s like something out of Henry that runs off the central courtyard. leads the way down a dark, dank corridor He lurches forward in slow motion and into sludge. Abdou doesn’t seem to care. basin of filthy water has dried up, turning courtyard are flapping about because their – the high 30s. The geese and ducks in the chin. The afternoon is swelteringly hot cheek, evaporating before reaching his D O ‘Come this way,’ he says in a whisper. A moment later we find ourselves in a pposite right: turn a corner <;@ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX N ovember 2009 85 = left, and we’re in another courtyard. It’s smaller than the first and the walls are covered in black and white zellij mosaics. Above these mosaics and the towering colonnades, an upper terrace is heavily adorned with painted wood, and looks as if it’s about to collapse from rot. ‘This is the harem,’ says Abdou with a smirk. ‘Beautiful ladies guarded by eunuchs. Close your eyes, breathe in deep and you can almost smell them!’ A little imagination goes a long way in Fez. If you do as Abdou suggests, you find yourself catapulted back through time, with the clatter of mules clip-clopping up the narrow alleyways, the scent of lamb roasting on spits and the muffled sounds of bustle from the souq. Fez is without doubt the greatest medieval Arab city still intact anywhere on earth. To wander its streets is to be part of a way of life that has become fragmented or has disappeared entirely elsewhere across the East. Describing it to someone ÉN@K? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX pack-mules stumble forward, laden with Ages, Fez was already a teeming centre of merchants departed for the new town 86 Xyxyxyxy 2009 November 2009 87 F 88 the same obsession. that must mystify those who don’t share fragments of the city’s soul in conversations mumble about details of ornament and really be explained. When we meet, we foreigners as well. It’s something that can’t touches a great many Moroccans and with all mod cons in the ville nouvelle. to rich foreigners, then buy an apartment same dream – to sell their home and shop been left behind. Many locals dream the still to be found in the labyrinth today has and Casablanca decades ago, while anyone spices forsale, andthesmoke fromshishkebabsbeinggrilledonanopenbarbecue calls toprayerandclip-cloppingmulestheheadyscentsofspicedcoffee, freshherbsand around, tryingtogetyourbearings, yoursenseswillbeoverwhelmedbythesoundsofbustle, R 8E; 8>I<8K ÉK?<CFM<8 hint that you want to buy a little house, or to what is secret world. but as an outsider, you aren’t able to peer in is going on behind the battered old doors, quickly get the feeling that all kinds of life are dark and even a little imposing. You that the ever-narrowing web of alleyways the main streets, the arteries, you can find under the skin of the city. Once you stray off sometimes complain how hard it is to get out a small riad he owns to foreigners. bed. David pays for it all himself by renting night when everyone else is tucked up in on a micro scale, which is often done at fountain. It’s a kind of guerrilla restoration stretch of neglected street or a rubbish-filled craftsmen, known as moualems, restore a with obsessive care and age-old skills. his eye – a time when all renovation is done and he speaks of his dream with a glint in allows the ancient buildings to breathe; traditional medluk, a lime rendering, which untrained eye. He waxes lyrical about the of detail that often goes unnoticed by the door, David is a connoisseur of the kind and hinges that once adorned every Fassi in the shadows of the Kairaouine Mosque. well as any young child playing marbles the twists and turns of the 9,000 streets as ight: Fezisamazeoftwistingalleys, suchasthisonenearthe Thankfully, the love affair with Fez A good way of getting instant access is to Even visitors who stay in the medina Each month, David’s small team of master With a passion for the handmade nails = than a decade ago, and knows moved to the medina more scholar David Amster. He Fez bug is American-born NE man bitten deeply by the FI<@>E small Anglophone community living in – most often as second homes. There’s a up properties – treasure or no treasure But plenty of foreigners have snapped though the lure of treasure was strong. that would give to an old man like me?’ said slowly, ‘what problems a treasure like of his jellaba. ‘Do you have any idea,’ he The owner wiped his eyes with the sleeve floor, why have you not dug it up yourself?’ ‘If there is indeed a treasure under this I am asking for the house.’ It is vast and worth many times the price he said. ‘Under the floor, there is a treasure. there is a secret, and I will tell it to you,’ of an old man with a plan. smiled. It was the wry, toothless smile have the funds to buy it, the owner loudly, exclaiming that I simply didn’t at least 500 years ago. When I sighed and that the foundations had been laid had lived there for many generations, a scroll 20-feet long. He said his family Its owner showed me the title document, Rsif, the most historic area of the medina. are buried in the basement,’ he said. me and grinned. ‘Some of my ancestors room eight decades before. He looked at told me that he’d been born in the corner leather sandals from animal hides, and looking cat. He spent his days cutting with a dozen white doves and a ferocious- elderly craftsman lived in its great salon painted in fabulous geometric designs. An for sale, with magnificent cedar ceilings roof waiting to become lunch. soap operas, and caged chickens up on the gripped in front of interminable Egyptian scampering about on their trikes, families laundry drying in the sun, children grandmothers toiling away at the stove, section of medina life – kitchens with there’s no better way of witnessing a cross homes as you want to see. In my experience, only too happy to take you round as many Nights from the pages of even a palace, a dream home conjured In the end I didn’t buy the house, even I thought for a moment, and then asked, ‘Do not worry about money because Nearby, I was taken to a home at Bab Er A few months ago, I was shown a palace . The immobiliers, estate agents, are S ouq El A Thousand and One A ttarine. A s youwander XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX N ovember 2009 89 = the Fez medina. Of them all, the most indefatigable is certainly Mike Richardson. Mike was maître d’ at London’s swish The Ivy restaurant and at The Wolseley on Piccadilly before that. ‘One day, I was at a party and I overheard someone talking about Fez,’ he says. ‘It sounded glorious and before I knew it, I’d moved out here, bought a little house with my savings, and opened Café Clock.’ Lodged in a narrow alley opposite the medieval Madrassa Bouanania, the Clock, as it’s known to all, is spread out over several levels and is immensely popular. Clambering up and down to all the terraces became such a strain on the legs that Mike eventually hired a waiter with a penchant for mountain climbing. In a back room off the staircase, the chef’s assistant is adding a pinch of dried so he often invited people to stay. Today, been bewitched by the spell of Fez.’ damask rose petals and a handful of secret Riad Laaroussa is an exclusive riad hotel A few streets away, back at the Glaoui ingredients to a fresh batch of minced with eight sumptuous suites. Palace, Abdou is lowering his eyelids for camel meat. After searching his entire There’s a serenity about the place that a second siesta of the day. A tiny tabby culinary career for the perfect hamburger soothes you on entering through the doors. kitten has nestled on his chest and is meat, Mike found it in Fez. As he says, As you sit in the shade of the central purring softly. The only sound is the ‘Camel meat sits so nicely on the bun.’ courtyard you’re lulled by birdsong, and honking of the geese in the background running water gently cascading from a and the muffled call to prayer far away. NOTHER European to have marble fountain. The air is still, scented by One day, Abdou’s home will surely be realised his dream in orange blossom, the sky above indigo blue. transformed into a name-brand chain hotel, Morocco’s secret heart is ‘The secret of Fez is not to be in a hurry’ and the rot, the old tin cans and the geese Fred Sola, a Frenchman, says Fred, lounging on a chaise longue. ‘If will be gone. There’ll be bellboys in smart who was born in Casablanca. you hurry, obstacles appear as if by magic. uniforms, piped Muzak and plumbing that A8 few years ago he bought Riad Laaroussa, We had about 50 craftsmen working with actually works. My own dream is that Fez a run-down 17th-century palace once us for 18 months. They were so skilled, – Morocco’s Sleeping Beauty – dozes off owned by the Moroccan minister for war, doing work that relies on pure expertise, again like Abdou, and that the future waits and which required extensive renovation. not on power tools. When the work a while longer to arrive. CG Fred had intended to have it as a private finished on Riad Laaroussa, I didn’t want home, but when the work was done and to lose the craftsmen – so we now renovate Tahir Shah’s latest book, In Arabian Nights (Bantam; XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX he moved in, Fred felt lonely in the palace, homes for other people who, like me, have £8.99) is out now. Tahir lives in Casablanca, Morocco. 90 Xyxyxyxy 2009 November 2009 91 92 FeDfifZZf <[`k_N_Xikfe# the Atlas andthedesert.’ influence –theof under thespellofanother ‘Gradually [inFez], onefalls K?< NF = TAHIR SHAH O Rainfall N | S PHOTOGRA I D aïss, : P HS ; JULIAN LOVE 100 125 mm :FÊJ 75 25 50 0 8 * GG = 98I>8@E is pouffe (42 Talaa Kebira). pay around £20 for an embroidered the heart of the medina. Expect to COOPE (except clothing) is made at the can be fashioned from leather Just about everything that tiles (79p; Talaa Kebira). marble floors and zellij wonder ofbrass doors, institute is a 14th-century MEDE The price than finer place to stay in Fez for this and charming hosts, there’s no rooftop terrace, beautiful rooms With astunningcourtyard, Cooperative Artisanale BO cafeclock.com). minaret (camelburger £7.40; of Bou Inania Medersa CAF burger) on the roof terrace of Stop for tea (or a camel darseffarine.com). R U R SA ATIVE A ATIVE I D`[iXe^\ N DA É educational A CLOCK N R SEFFA IA R TISA , with its view R N I N ALE E 98I>8@E 98I>8@E (£63; in 98I>8@E 3 NejjarineSquare). boards (writingboards, from£70; items suchaswoodenwriting painted ceilings, aswellsmaller furniture, doors andevenwhole with antiques–large pieces of AN 535 635785; daranebar.com). (four-course set menu £32; 00 212 dining salonsat pastries in one of the sumptuous courtyard, feast on tagine and After a drink in the lamp-lit £163; riad-laaroussa.com). stylish placetobaseyourself(suite LAA of artandunusualfurniture, trees andfountaintoroomsfull From thegarden withorange The gardenat TI R QU O U IT SSA £32; maisonbleue.com). water (massagefrom such asorange-flower uses Moroccanproducts MAISO For atreat, the É C N lolip EJJ is animpeccably DA R iad Laaroussa A N R R BLE A I N N E EBA U bulges R E SPA IAD R R I AD PHOTOGRAPHS: JULIAN LOVE, CORBIS. ILLUSTRATION: BISHcourtyard is Abdou, faded grandeur at Morocco’s secret heart. of courtyards, the Glaoui is a jewel of the the experience. A vast sprawling labyrinth where visitors find themselves altered by the Western mind go unanswered, and place where simple questions posed by the fantasy of the a medieval twilight zone, one touched by 84 A 8 É= bove: pposite left: richly scented, brightly coloured spices line the Perched on a broken chair in the shade of I8
North Africa – Glaoui Palace. the most unexpected treasures dusty lane in Fez stands one of ying behind a steel door on a @JN@K?FLK;FL 9 :@KPJK@CC@EK8:K8EPN?
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Ê Opposite, clockwise from top left: a tanner mixes cerise into a dye pit ready to apply to the leather hides; handmade hats are stacked ready for sale in a local shop; a shop owner rests by his leather slippers in his workshop; a cockerel roams around freely as it awaits its fate at one of the many butchers at the start of the Talaa Kebira. Right: green, the colour of Islam, is also the colour of Fez and it can be seen in abundance around the city in tiles, such as on this minaret, on doors, and on the hills beyond