More Fez

We woke to more rain and said a sad goodbye to Anita, Karen, and Caroline who got on the train to Casablanca. Now we are 5! We decided, despite the rain, to take two petite taxis to the Mellah, or Jewish quarter, right by the royal palace. We stumbled around til we found the old synagogue, and a nice woman let us in for 20 dirham each. The highlight for me was the mikvah in the basement, still filled with eater. Hope we can follow with photos. A very persistent young man wanted to lead us to the cemetary, but we were pretty sure it was the wrong direction and had difficulty shaking him. Finally ed dodged into a bijouterie where he got a new strap for his watch. The man lingered outside by the corner, but we finally lost him as we emerged from the neighborhood into pouring rain, where we hailed taxis to return us to the Blue Gate so we could get back to the Riad to dry out. We had a picnic lunch of leftover snacks in the sitting room, then decided to try for the museum of woodcarving despite the rain. This was a worthwhile stop. We had some mint tea in the salon on the roof to wait out the rain before retuning home. Poor Susan was hit with sickness, but the rest of us went to a restaurant in a Riad that Marge had been to on a previous trip. I haven't mentioned that the medina is so convoluted and confusing that one actually needs to hire a guide to get from the hotel to whatever your destination is. On this night a man from the restaurant met us at our Riad and led us all over creation, through narrow alleys, to the restaurant. It was nice but didn't compare with Fatima's cooking in our Riad the night before!