The Walls have Ears - Gossip from the Fez Medina.

There has been much discussion about the great bars in Meknes - well, Lumen fights back for Fez by testing out the Hotel Batha and picking up the goss at the same time.

HERE & BACK AGAIN

Hotel Batha has a really great bar. It comes into its own in the winter months, when two roaring fires invite you in. The service is good and friendly and it’s an excellent place to meet. A certain two Antipodean ladies are known to move the furniture around so that the sofas actually face the fire instead of having their backs to it.

And meet we did, a lot of us ex-pats, to say a sad but fond farewell to Dominic on Sunday night, as he prepared to spend three months in Tokyo. Making some money and seeing his girlfriend there have meant leaving not only his riad off Derb El Horra, but also the new house he’s bought down Laayoune way. We’ve enjoyed his company, but resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn’t see him again til March.


Coming into Fez are Hajra and Guillaume from Canada. A mixed-media artist and photographer respectively, they had spent a few fretful nights in a spare bed here and a pension there, not really knowing what would happen but trusting that something would. As indeed it did. They are the perfect couple to move in with the formidable Genghis at Riad Zany. They were exploring their new abode on Wednesday, when who should appear but Dominic … Was this an optical illusion? Was it wishful thinking? No, it was just a British Airways mistake – Dominic had not been allowed to board the plane to London and as a reward (?) had been put up in the Royal Mirage Hotel for another night in Fez. It was good to have him here and back again for another day.

Brightening up Riad Lumen is another arrival, Tamsin Ranger. Here for three weeks from London, Tamsin is making her third trip to Morocco and now feels quite at home in the Medina. She can even shrug off such alluring comments as, “Hello Spice Girl. You have beautiful eye”. Tamsin comes bearing gifts of books, good cheeses, and of course, Marmite. Her shopping list in Fez is quite long, but here’s hoping she’ll manage all of it in three weeks. Stops in Marrakech and Asilah seem on the cards …


Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news