This weekend trip was slightly different because I went with my whole AMIDEAST program which was around 50-60 students. We left Saturday morning, February 16 at 9 am. The bus ride from Rabat to Fez took 3 and a half hours with a small pit stop at a snack shop along the way. We arrived at 12:30.
The hotel we stayed at was Hotel Ibis Fez, very close to the center of town.
My program had our first tour scheduled at 3, it was a tour of the Jjdid. We started outside the Royal Palace. I learned that the king has four different palaces.
Then we walked to the Mellah, or the Jewish Quarter. In the synagogue we saw a traditional bathing well, where women would bathe below the main floor and other women would watch and yell from the main floor via a hole in the ground that oversaw the well.
Then we walked through the streets back to our bus where we hitched a ride to the Borj Nord. The Borj Nord is an old fortress modeled after 16th century Portuguese forts. The fort was build in 1582, and inside it now houses an arms museum.
Below you can check out some of the pictures I took at the Borj Nord. I didn’t get any good pictures in the Mellah, but it history made up for the aesthetics!
These were my highlights from Day 1! Stay tuned for more!