Kidnapped by the Fassis...part 2

This morning we met with Samir outside the McDonald's again. He had insisted that we meet with him so he and his friend could take us sight seeing. Excited to discover the city we rose bright and early to meet him.

We went up to the top of the valley, in front of some ruins, and got a fantastic view of the entire city. Fez is in a valley so it is shaped like a bowl, a bowl of old buildings piled one upon the other, and dotted with minarets all over the city (hundreds of minarets in total, from what we understand).


View of Fes

After this wonderful introduction to Fes, we drove down to the city where we visited an old medersa (a Koranic school), a silk weaver's atelier and the potter's souk where we got to see the entire process of the artisans painstakingly making their mosaics by hand.


Inside the Medersa

And then...we went to see the rug vendors.... They seduced us with mint tea, they dazzled us with beautiful berber rugs, needle point, and wool rugs, they flattered us and fussed upon us all in the attempt to get us to buy a rug. So again, we ended up spending a good chunk of time in there... Hmm what about the rest of Fez? Maybe another day.


Inside the Carpet Souk

Tired at the end of the day, we headed to a restaurant in the Medina to have dinner and then home. Instead, we found Samir again who insisted that we come have dinner at his house again. We were honored by his kindness, but we really did want to just hit the hay and start out on our own early in the morning. However, after his insistence we agreed to meet him for dinner again. Unfortunately, dinner turned out to be a very similar affair as it was the previous night. Our host had his cousin drive us to his house where we met again his sisters. We spoke with his sister for about 3 hours and watched Lebanese television. Around 11PM, Samir came to his house, picked us up, and then dropped us off at the hotel. Tomorrow is our last day in Fes, so we are planning on spending a lot of our time doing sightseeing. Samir insisted that we meet with him again tomorrow morning, but we are not sure if we want to meet with him again. He is very nice but does not take no for an answer. We may just decide to skip the meeting entirely.