Hello friends! Tucked away in the souks of Fes, but not far from the gate Bab Boujloud, you can find the elaborately decorated Medersa Bou Inania. It’s a theological college and mosque that is still used by students today. It’s also the only religious site in Morocco that foreigners are allowed to enter, although you may only visit the courtyard and a handful of empty adjoining rooms while everything else is closed off.
Even so it is still an impressive sight to see, and for only 10 dihrams (about $2) you can’t go wrong! It was such a beautiful place I couldn’t just lump it in with the things I saw in the souks of Fes, so I decided to make a separate post about it.
Impressive, no? From far away it may not look like much, but once you get up close and personal all the detail in the patterns of the place will hit you like a very fancy brick in the face.
There is no wasted space on the walls or doors in the courtyard, save for a few marble columns. The massive doors and fences separating the courtyard from the medersa’s interior all have incredible shapes and lattice designs carved into the wood. And each wall is covered with thousands of tiles that form beautiful patterns of blues, browns, blacks, and greens.
Even the light fixtures are fancy.
Face, meet brick.
This place is just the most amazing thing to look at. Even the cats that hang around outside look like they’re meant to be there. When you go inside you see other tourists standing slack-jawed as they stare at the walls. And you’ll laugh at them a little bit, until you realise you’re doing it too. Just don’t let them see you drool because that’s probably rude and disrespectful. 🙂
-C
