Quote
JamesJM
Morocco could be #1 on my bucket list of places I hope to visit. What's it like?

I know I have probably built it up too much in my mind but I have a mental picture of it being about as 'exotic' as it gets.... mysterious.

Well, partly. (Mysterious.) Morrocco is very aware of tourists and you would be amazed how many people are multi-lingual.

Bear in mind I was there 40 years ago. It's probably not quite the same place.

I spent time mostly in Fez. So I will just talk about Fez. I was there for a couple of weeks. How I got there and the story about who I was with is a separate thing worth telling sometime.

Fez is the largest "medina" or old medieval walled city in north africa. That means that within the walls, there are no straight lines. It's a medieval maze. You can't drive in most of it so burros are common (to haul things like goods to shops). Inside the walled city there are shops everywhere, some for locals, many for outsiders, and crammed with artisanal commodities for sale of surpassing quality (rugs for example). You have to bargain for everything, including hotel rooms. You can't get around in the medina without a guide, it's just that simple. The food is high quality because it's all real produce and livestock, no conglomorate production. When I was there the shops included real and very old styles of artisanal production. I watched an old man hammer out a brass plate with intricate designs and it was entrancing (last picture, below).

Fez. All pics are just from off the net. Though, I do have actual pictures taken then that look very much like these scenes. First is the famous blue gate to the Fez medina.