Thursday, February 01, 2007

Renting a riad in Fez for the Sacred Music Festival

This is just a quick reminder to our readers who are coming to Fez for the 2007 Sacred Music Festival. Accommodation is always difficult to get at this time and so if you have not yet found a place to stay you may well miss out on the delights of living in a traditional riad in the medina and have to resort to one of the over-priced hotels and have the hassle of finding your way to and from the Festival.

Renting a riad or booking a room in a guesthouse is still possible but we suggest you don't wait to much longer. In the Medina you have two basic options:

Renting a riad: When renting an entire house, you have the whole house to yourself. All linen, a daily cleaning service and breakfast are provided. Generally, the cost is based on the number of people staying in the house. You can usually negotiate with the staff to have dinner cooked for you if necessary.

Guesthouses: Staying in a guesthouse is more like lodging in a small hotel on a bed and breakfast basis. Dinner is sometimes available, though you need to make a reservation by mid-morning. Almost all rooms in guesthouses have a private bathroom and many have air-conditioning/heating. It is usually possible to rent the entire guesthouse too, if you have a large group.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

Dar Bennis - a delightful, traditional house, meticulously restored and comfortably furnished. Just off Tala'a Kebira. Sleeps up to 5. From 80 Euros per night for the entire house, including breakfast.

Riad Laaroussa - Another of our favourite places to stay. A superb riad, beautifully restored and appointed, in convenient location. There are five generously proportioned, comfortable suites with bathrooms and an breathtakingly beautiful roof terrace with great medina views. Magnificent kitchen to explore Moroccan cuisine. From 90 Euros per room per night.

Dar Seffarine - Superb 600-year-old house deep in the medina offers comfortable accommodation and excellent terrace with good views. From 70 Euros per room per night, including breakfast.

The View from Fes has no commercial interest in any of these properties and offers this advice purely as a public service.

To find out more about them and to make a booking contact Fes Riads where, if you make a reservation, a donation is automatically made towards the preservation of the Medina. Two percent of your accommodation costs is channeled into a special fund to finance micro-projects in a private capacity. A good example of such work has been carried out on a Qur'anic School in the Guerniz area. Now Fez Riads has two new projects, the cleaning and restoration of a fountain and the planting of a garden in a Medina square.

Contact details for Fez Riads:

email: helenranger@gmail.com
landline: (+212) 35 740 815
mobile: (+212) 72 513 357
Skype username: helenranger

Fez Sacred music Festival programme details: FES FESTIVAL OF WORLD SACRED MUSIC 2007

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