When in Fes

you speak French ... but also English. The English speakers smile quaintly at our French and the French speakers look confusedly at our French.

Fes is nothing like the film Casablanca. But foreign destinations rarely our like their filmic equivalent.

We are loving Fes, which is the artistic and cultural capital of Morocco. We have been eating great food like shish kebabs and vegetable tagines, mint tea and wonderful coffees and sweet crepes. We will be having a few Moroccoan dinners when we get back, thats for sure.

We spent a day touring the artistic capital of Morocco, which dates back to the Carthigian times. Fes was the site of the worlds first university back in 700 AD. The old city is called the Medina. This is an amazing place where 400,000 people live enclosed by the old city walls. No cars can fit and the cobbled lanes and alleyways have not changed much since the middle ages. The streets are alive with people selling everything from carpets to coffees, carvings to cameras, crepes to coins.

Brad and I got separated yesterday and only rejoined back at the hotel. The maze of alleyways and lanes is so confusing. I only found my way out an hour later trying to recognise the lanes of shops selling leather, brass, spices and material.

And no one hassles you. There is no _ madam, madam...where you go? what is your name? just looking! Best price for you!

But the sellers still like to bargain which is a fun way to shop.

We are going through the Atlas Mountains and out to the Sarah desert over the next couple of days before heading onto Marrakech, in the south of the country.