Fes
If Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year,
then Fez must be the goddess’s playground.
-- Raquel Cepeda
In its heyday, Fez attracted scholars and philosophers, mathematicians and lawyers, astronomers and
theologians. Craftsmen built them houses and palaces, kings endowed mosques and medersas (religious schools),
and merchants offered exotic wares from the silk roads and sub-Saharan trade routes. Although Fez lost its
influence at the beginning of the 19th century, it remains a supremely self-confident city whose cultural
and spiritual lineage beguiles visitors. Something of the medieval remains in the world’s largest car-free
urban area: donkeys cart goods down the warren of alleyways, and while there are still ruinous pockets,
government efforts to restore the city are showing results.
[lonelyplanet.com]
