TUNISIA, DAY 2 CONT.: KAIROUAN - MAUSOLEAM SIDI ABID AL-GHARIANI, ZAWIYA OF SIDI SAHIB, THE EL JEM AMPHITHEATER, COUNTRY ROADS, THE MEDINA, AND A PARTY AT OUR HOTEL

March 21, 2024

As we walked deeper into the old town section of Kairouan, we came to the Mausoleum of Sidi Abid Al-Ghariani.

This building was built as a madrasa (school for studying the Quran) in the 14th century by a Kairawani scholar known as Al-Jadidi. After he died while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1384 AD, his disciple Sidi Abid Al-Ghariani carried on his work. When Sidi Abid died in 1402 AD, he was buried here, and ever since the school has borne his name. 

It is a spectacular example of the local architectural style.

Check out this amazing craftsmanship:

I think this must be the tomb, but we were not allowed to go into the room itself and this photo was taken from the door.

TUNISIA, DAY 2: KAIROUAN - AGHLABID BASINS AND THE GREAT MOSQUE

 March 21, 2014

After a non-descript buffet breakfast in the hotel, our guide Feker picked us up at our hotel. This is the courtyard in front of our hotel, accessed by a wonderful stone gate.

A sign on the gate says a whole bunch of stuff in Arabic, and Porte de France, 13/03/1912 in French.

The gate marks the separation between the old medina and the new city.

From our room's balcony, which overlooked the square, I had seen a man strewing seed in the plaza. There were plenty of pigeons there scavenging for leftovers about half an hour later.

When Feker arrived, of course he took twenty or so photos.

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO: WHERE'S WALDO IN JEMAA EL FNA SQUARE

Fes or Marrakech?

That's a question that many a time-challenged traveler asks. Of all the tourist destinations in Morocco, these two cities have the most to offer in the way of culture and history, but they are 300 miles apart, and the journey between them is not easy. Many tourists try to weigh the attractions of each place so that they can tip the scale in favor of one or the other, but the two cities really cannot be compared. While they have some things in common--a wonderful old town with all its cultural and historical buildings, a new town with its modern conveniences, crazy traffic, interesting people, relaxing riads--there is also much that is different.

In a Huffington Post article published a couple of years ago entitled "The Great Moroccan Debate: Marrakech or Fes?" Nicole Leigh West wrote: ". . . if they were both cakes made with culture instead of flour, Marrakech's other main ingredients are fun, color and exuberance, while Fes is flavored with history, mystery and its own serious brand of medieval mayhem."

The comparison I came up with is that if Morocco were to be compared to Brazil (where, admittedly, I have never been), Fes would be Sao Paulo and and Marrakech would be Rio during Mardi Gras, and the heart of the party in Marrakech is Jemaa el Fna Square, which has been around since at least the 12th century. The square is to Marrakech what Central Park is to New York City. It is a huge open space in the midst of a crowded city that serves as a place for entertainment, relaxation, and gathering.

On one side of the square is the souk, and the other sides are edged by hotels and mosques and cafes:

As in so many places in Morocco, it's a crazy blend of Old World panache and 21st century swagger:

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO: EDITH WHARTON IN MOROCCO AND THE CANNONS IN THE JEMAA EL FNA SOUK

In 1917, American author Edith Wharton (1862-1937), accompanied by the American diplomat Walter Berry and a large retinue of servants, traveled through Morocco "from the Mediterranean to the High Atlas, and from the Atlantic to Fez" (Wharton, In Morocco). When I think of Edith Wharton, the first things that come to mind are her short novel Ethan Frome and the longer, more tedious novel The Age of Innocence, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921.  I also think of her as a socialite and the belle of the American literary world during the early 20th century.

Photo: Edith Wharton Restoration/New York Times

I don't think of her as a travel writer, but she was. 

Wharton describes her month-long journey to Morocco at the end of World War I in detail in In Morocco, which can be considered the first tourist guidebook for the area, at least the first written in English. Interestingly, our Moroccan adventure followed roughly the same route as Wharton's, beginning on the North Atlantic coast, motoring to Fes, winding through the Atlas Mountains, and then settling in Marrakech at the end of lots of driving.

In 1917, Morocco was "foreign" in every sense of the word, but that was about to change. Wharton notes, "Hardly has the Rock of Gibraltar turned to cloud when one's foot is on the soil of an almost unknown Africa. . . . The air of the unforeseen blows on one from the roadless  passes of the Atlas. . . . [I made] my quick trip at a moment unique in the history of the country; the brief moment of transition between its virtually complete subjection to European authority, and the fast approaching hour when it is thrown open to all the banalities and promiscuities of modern travel. Morocco is too curious, too beautiful, too rich in landscape and architecture, and above all too much of a novelty, not to attract one of the main streams of spring travel as soon as the Mediterranean passenger traffic is resumed. . . .  [N]o one will ever again see Moulay Idriss and Fez and Marrakech as I saw them." Wharton captured the country at the precipice of change.

One year short of a century later, Bob and I felt, somewhat like Wharton, that we were traveling in a country in a tug o' war between the past and the future. One of the places we felt the pull of the past the strongest was in the souks. The deeper we walked into the souks, the further back in time and the farther from the West we seemed to be.

The biggest souk in Marrakech, and one of the biggest bazaars in Africa, is the one attached to Jemaa el-Fna, the city's main square. Before we even got to the souk, however, we dealt with a spill-over of shopping from the souk alleys into the square. A few steps from the square's perimeter, carts on wheels suddenly appear in front of unsuspecting strolling tourists. 

A string of juice carts doesn't have to track down buyers; plenty of folks come to them in search of freshly-squeezed orange juice:

FES, MOROCCO: THE SOUK

I love the word "souk" (pronounced to rhyme with "duke"). It sounds so foreign and so exotic, which is just what a souk is. Every old Arabic city has a souk, which is an open-air marketplace or bazaar. (Actually, I like the equally exotic Persian word "bazaar" as well.)

We didn't spend any time in the Fes souk by ourselves, which I regret, but we did spend a lot of time walking through it with our guide Hassan. However, later in our trip we did spend a lot of time by ourselves in the Marrakech souk, which seemed to me to be more open, less intimidating, and less mysterious than the narrow, darker passageways of Fes, but that is probably because we had been in Morocco longer and were more comfortable in general by that time. While the residential alleyways of Fes were generally quiet and empty, the souk was noisy and crowded. Sometimes the passageways were quite narrow, making for plenty of pushing and jostling, and the claustrophobia was not helped by the occasional goods-laden donkey being led through the maze.

One of the things that really took me by surprise was the food on display in glass cases protruding from dark stalls throughout the souk. Unfamiliar Moroccan dishes were occasionally punctuated with French pastries. 

There were plenty of eclairs and millefeuille (bottom left of photo below) for sale. I can't imagine that they were baked in the souk; someone must have a French pastry franchise going on in Fes.

I'm not sure what this delicacy is (Could it be cheese?), but the presentation is beautiful:

One thing the Moroccans did not learn from the French is how to make bread. We were constantly disappointed by the bread, which basically came in two forms, a flat bread that looks like a tortilla or crepe but is a lot more like cardboard:

. . . and the ubiquitous round loaves, made with yeast but patted out into flat circles and dusted with semolina. They are about the size of a small salad plate and are served with every meal. We saw them in stacks on the counters in restaurants and shops everywhere we went, including in the souk. Sitting out all day didn't add much to their moistness. A little bit of this bread goes a long way. It wasn't until we made some ourselves in our cooking class in Marrakech and ate them warm with olive oil for dipping that we thought they were any good.

I didn't get a good picture of the stacks of bread in the souks,
so I borrowed this picture from here, where you can also see a recipe.