Strikes at Munich airport have us rebooking to fly via Nürnberg which was easily reachable via fast train. We hire a little car in Casablanca that barely fits us and our hand luggage and zoom off into Moroccan traffic which thanks to our experience in Asia is only half as intimidating. Lunch break in Rabat which has us positively surprised, very pretty, we walk through the old town and market, making friends with cats.
On to our first destination, Meknes, we park the car outside of the Medina and walk in to find our Riad. We explore local markets and Fabi has his first haircut by a professional in over 4 years. Usually I have this honor. It’s so cold we have not changed out of our “airport clothes” once, the only warm ones we brought with us.
We leave Meknes after one night and head north, up into the mountains towards Chefchaounen. The start of Ramadan means that all local eateries and coffee stalls are closed during the day, to our great distress as priority number one is the local cuisine whilst traveling. Thus we use every opportunity to try everything when we do come across something that is open. We stop in Moulay Idriss Zerhoun to explore the local Market which is in full bustle in preparation of Ramadan.
Further up into the mountains and we arrive at Chefchaounen where houses and streets are painted in various shades of blue. We explore the town, the mountain around it and make friends with many, many cats. We are lucky to find a local eatery off the beaten tracks of the tourist and enjoy authentic chicken and vegetable tajine and a meatball dish cooked in tomato sauce.
We head back down south through the mountains towards Fes, where we again park the car outside and walk in by foot. Once again we explore the market and surrounding Medina, must only about 1/3 of the merchants are open, we are guessing due to Ramadan. Also the streets are very empty. We climb up to the rooftops to look down onto the Tanneries, where animal hides are turned into leather. We find another great restaurant offering local dishes, we opt for Moroccan salad, meatball tajine, lamp with prunes and pastries as dessert.
Even though temperatures are warmer, we still have a chill in our bones and book into a hamam, a local steam bath where one is washed, scrubbed and oiled by ladies and served tea and dried fruit after. The Riad in which the hamam is offers accommodation way out of our budget, but thanks to our booking we are able to walk around and have a look.
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