We hit the ground running, as it were. Directly from landing in Casablanca, our bus took us on a very quick tour of the city and then to Rabat. In Rabat, we saw the kasbah of Oudayas, Hassan Tower, and the Mohammed V Mausoleum and the Mechouar. From Rabat, we toured the Roman ruins at Volubilis and visited the sacred town of Moulay Idriss. After visiting this second most holy Moslem site, we traveled to Meknes, a city enclosed by 25 miles of triple walls with bastions. The gates of Bab Mansour amplified the impression of a besieged fortress. After Meknes, we ended the day in Fez. We did get to spend the entire next day in Fez, topping it off with a traditional Moroccan feast, complete with belly dancer and mock wedding ceremony. Then, we were off to Marrakesh, where we spent the day. We ended our tour spending overnight in Casablanca, but had to leave for the airport at 6 AM, so never did see the city except by bus on the way out and in.

UNESCO has declared the old city of Fez to be a world historical site, and has provided over $600 million to preserve the city the same as it was 900 years ago. The streets are so narrow that the only method of transporting raw materials into the market is by donkey, and the traveller should be aware that the pack animals have the right of way. Many times, we had to duck into doorways to avoid being trampelled by the donkeys, who, by the way, are plugged to avoid soiling the streets. Morocco has a high unemployment rate, but I sure would not want to be a donkey plugger!

The basic setup of the souk, or market, is that the stores are downstairs and the people live upstairs, often in extended families that can take up the equivalent of a small apartment complex. Most all of the manufacturing of goods is done right in the store. The souk is broken up into areas; the jewelers' market, the leather market, etc. The most interesting is the tannery, where you emerge above the various vats of dye. We were warned that the smell was so intense, you should bring a handkerchief and buy some mint leaves to mask the odor. Maybe being a New York area resident has deadened our sense of smell, but the streets of Manhattan on any given day put out a much stronger scent.

We had an overall tour coordinator, who stayed with the bus through the entire week, but had local guides most everywhere else to provide us with an in-depth tour. The man who led us in Fez was excellent. He even was willing to help with the bargaining at the few places he allowed us to stop and shop. Even though he was getting a rake-off at the shops, he seemed to negotiate with us in mind rather than his commision. When we saw this, we broke down and purchased an oriental rug.

To save money, we said that we would take the rug with us, rather than have it shipped. They packaged the rug and said that they would deliver it to our tour bus by the end of our tour of the souk. We got to the bus -- no carpet. And we had laughed when another couple physically carried their carpet purchase on their backs throughout the souk. Our local guide assured us that all was OK and that the rug would be waiting for us at the hotel when we returned there for lunch. Again, no luck. We set off that afternoon for another round of touring. I was not terribly concerned; I had paid for the purchase with a credit card, so worse came to worse I would refuse to pay. I had not seen the rug long enough to be so in love with it to miss it. But, we were leaving Fez early the next morning, so it needed to appear quickly. In the middle of the afternoon tour, we stopped at a metalworker's shop. There, our tour guide proceeded to call up the carpet dealer and scream at him in arabic. Suddenly, he got quiet and hung up the phone. He called me over and told me that the rug was in the back room of the shop. Apparently, the dealers all know the route of the tour bus and simply delivered it to the shop. Why the shopkeeper never informed us, we will never know. Anyway, we loaded it onto the bus and it looks wonderful in our living room.

This same guide was approached by some of the tour participants about visiting a synagogue. All of the Imperial Cities had a Jewish quarter next to the royal palace. The Jews are mainly gone from Morocco, having gone to Israel or other parts of Europe. However, that evening, we went to the French quarter of Fez and visited two synagogues. I was chastized by the elders of one congregation for not knowing my Hebrew. They had just completed their evening prayer service before we arrived, and graciously allowed us to tour the small sanctuary. I redeemed myself by thanking them in Hebrew. It seemed that almost all of the people on our trip were Jewish, but had no idea that there was such a difference between Ashkenazi (German and Eastern European) and Sephardic (Spanish) Jewry. The architecture of the synagogues, the lingua franca (Ashkenazis speak Yiddish, a bastardized form of German; Sephardics use Ladino, a combination of Hebrew and Spanish), and the customs all differ.

I forgot to mention that there were only 19 on our tour. In order to save money, Kasbah Tours International, the local tour company, combined our group with a group of tourists from Germany. Our tour coordinator spoke in both languages. I found that to be advantageous, since his accent often made it difficult to understand, especially dates. I often ended up waiting for the German translation to get the numbers. We also had another bus that was on the same type of tour filled with Italians. It was nice to have the multinational flair. For some reason, a good many of the street vendors would look at me and speak to me in Hebrew. It was amuzing, since the people on my bus had a hard time deciding whether we were Jewish.

Back to the temple tour. That evening, we ended up seated at the dinner table with a couple from Germany who had elected to go to the synagogues with the rest of us. I got to use my religious studies knowledge to answer the many questions they had concerning the differences between Judaism and their own Lutheran faith. After that, it got quite uncofortable, as this couple was from Bayreuth, home of the Wagner festival and what was the heart of the Nazi movement. They kept on apologizing for the war. I tried to explain that I did not blame them, but I guess they needed to vent.

Obviously, it seems as if I enjoyed Fez the most. There is a lot more to be said about the other cities and sites, but I think I will save that for another time. In the meantime, on the next page find some examples of the pictures we took, with brief explanations.