I got up for breakfast, and in this hotel, there was a buffet and I was most surprised to find they were even serving bacon! However, I settled for some pain au chocolat, pastries, and a hot pancake, and then it was time for our guided tour of Fes. Our guide this morning was called Momo, short for Mohammed, but also he said that if we lost him in the medina and shouted "Mohammed!", many men would turn around!
	The first stop on our tour was the Palais Royale, and Momo drew our attention to the intricately carved and chiselled brass doors, which were hand-crafted by a craftsman in the medina, who started them in 1968, and completed them five years later.
	Then we drove up to a viewpoint where we could see the whole of the medina, and we could also see the Merinides where we were last night on the opposite hillside, and then we saw where the hotel was named after, as it is next to the Tombs of the Merenids, one of the ancient royal dynasties of Morocco. Momo told us there are 500,000 people living and working in the Fes medina alone! Most of the travel guides I have read range from 50,000 to 250,000, so I am not sure which is true, but either way, we were warned it would be very crowded and we must keep Momo in sight at all times when inside the medina. (It has been nicknamed "the most complicated square mile on Earth!")
	So we took the short journey back on the coach and arrived outside the medina, and, as no vehicles are allowed, and indeed could not even fit down the narrow streets and alleys inside the medina, we went in on foot. We passed grocers selling vegetables and bunches of coriander and mint, and the first place we stopped was the tannery , where they still tan leather using the traditional methods. We were lucky the sky was overcast this morning, so it was quite cool, but the stench was still very strong and almost nauseating! It must be unbelievable on a hot day. We were able to buy leather goods - bags, belts, purses, holdalls. Then we continued through the labyrinth of streets to the weaver's, where they were weaving fabric for djellabahs in the shop.
	The medina was very clean - and the only transport allowed inside is donkeys and mules - no cars or bicycles. We passed the dyer's souk, dying wool in cauldrons, and went to an attarine, rather like an apothecary shop, selling herbs, spices, perfumes, and even beads? They sold saffron for 30 dh / gram (much cheaper than in Europe), and they showed us "natural musk from the gazelle", which was in fact an amber solid type of product (it is prepared from perfumery materials, synthetic musks, vanilla and aromatic resins such as benzoin, etc.), so he was really playing to the wrong audience, as we, being perfumers, knew this wasn't really natural musk! They also had a lemon scented amber solid type of thing which would be quite interesting to try and make!
	We saw a fondouk, a kind of hostel for animals and people, then we went to see a shop selling traditional Moroccan clothing. I bought the latest in Moroccan fashions - a dress / trousers combined, but all out of one piece of material, a really clever design, and a scarf. Then we went into what used to be a palace, and inside there is now the carpet souk, exhibiting carpets made by local craftspeople, and we were served mint tea. The carpets were beautiful, and could be bought for what must be a very good price if one could afford it, and haggling is essential. I fell in love with a room-sized royal blue carpet, which must have been worth well over £1000, but I settled for a very similar but much smaller version, which started off at the equivalent of £320, and I was not even trying to haggle at that stage, I just kept shaking my head and saying I could not afford it, and it went right down to £200, and at that, I just could not leave it there! The carpets must not be hoovered, they have a winter side and a summer side, and to remove dust, it is necessary to turn it over and walk on the other side for a few days, when the floor below can be hoovered! The carpet sellers spoke excellent English, as did our guide, and obviously their main trade is the tourists. While we were in the medina, we also saw several other groups of tourists, and they all had guides speaking to them fluently in their own language, so Fes is very geared up to tourism, to their credit. The medina really is a maze - we would have got totally lost without our guide - but if I return to Morocco one day, I will certainly go back to Fes. We had one last stop, the copper place, where the craftsman who made the doors for the palace lives and works.
	We left the medina and returned to the hotel, for a lunch of prawn salad, mixed grill, and a fruit flan, after which we checked out of the hotel, and, having made sure that our carpets had been delivered to the hotel and loaded onto the coach, we set off again. By the road were fields and fields of sunflowers, I assume they were being cultivated for sunflower oil and seeds, and we saw dozens of mimosa trees.
	After about an hour's drive to Khemisset, we went to the second of S.B.I.'s two plants, where they were presently processing wild camomile. They were doing steam distillation in one building, and solvent extraction in another, so they were making camomile absolute. It was at this point that the videotape ran out.

We walked outside to a grove of bitter orange trees, being cultivated to produce the neroli or orange blossoms. There were a few tiny, green bitter oranges on the trees, but these only appear if the bloom has not been picked, so on the whole, the trees do not produce fruit. One of the main highlights of the trip was next - we were to go out into the fields to look at all the plantations, and as the coach could not get into the fields, we all had to climb onto a large tractor-trailer to ride around the fields! I wished I had some videotape left for this - we certainly had some interesting experiences on this trip! We rode past more orange groves, some jasmin plantations which were just about to come into bloom, carob trees and wheat, (so S.B.I. are not just growing plants for perfumery materials), and then we clambered off the trailer to closely examine some geranium (pelargonium) plants, and the wonderful geranium scent could be smelt by gently stroking the leaves. The fields are surrounded by trees which act as windbreaks to protect the crops. The wild camomile is collected from an area away from the factory, but we saw a another truckful arriving just as we were leaving.

On our way to Casablanca, we travelled on Morocco's only motorway! We arrived at the city intending to go straight to the restaurant for our dinner as were were running a little late, but we saw the hotel we would be staying in as we were driving past. Casablanca looked a busy, bustling city, with many modern, tower block buildings. We drove all the way to the other side of town, past the magnificent Hassan II mosque, costing many millions of pounds to build and to which all Moroccans contributed, as a birthday gift for their king. Dominique and the coach driver began a slightly heated exchange in French, and then Dominique turned to us and admitted the driver did not know how to get to the restaurant. Dominique was keen to ask directions, saying "je vais demander...(I am going to ask...), a passer-by...a gendarme...a taxi-driver..." (all this in French), and the driver was shaking his head and saying no, and this, after a long day, was getting more hilarious by the minute. Eventually, he persuaded the driver to stop and he asked two passers-by and then we turned around and went back a short way, still not sure where we were going. Dominique again got the driver to stop, while he went into another restaurant to ask the way to our restaurant! We waited on the coach, imagining the restaurant owner seeing this coach full of tourists, probably thinking he could fill his restaurant if we all went in! In the end, after asking at yet another restaurant, we found the one we were supposed to go to, and after all that, it was just around the corner from the hotel!

We had a delicious fish dinner, followed by a strawberry ice cream dessert, anticipating our night at the hotel, as we were all very tired. However, this hotel was another story altogether! First, I got a different number on my key card to my key, (for some unknown reason, the concierge said I must have a different room). Then we got upstairs, and the porter was putting the key in the lock and it would not open, so he muttered something in French and went away to get another key. Meanwhile, Rhona and Mary's room was not clean - there was rubbish in the waste-bin etc, and so off Rhona went to complain and ask for another room. (She speaks fluent French, so was not letting them get away with it!) Eventually the porter came back with another key to a different room, on the floor below! So he let me in the room, went out and shut the door. I needed to go out of the room again, and I found the door would not open and I could not get out! So I was phoning the concierge to send someone to let me out! All this was going on at midnight, and it was the last thing anyone needed. So when a porter came to let me out, I made sure I knew how to operate the door lock this time. Well, I was just not impressed with this place at all. The furnishing and decor was very dowdy, the bathroom suite was very worn looking, there was no hairdryer, no tissues in the tissue dispenser, a stain on the counterpane, do I need to go on? I went to take a shower, and when I turned it on, the pressure of the water made the shower head run at an angle, spraying water all over the bathroom. It was one thing after another in this place! Oh, and there were no proper pillows either, only a bolster cushion, but I found out the next morning that Rhona had ordered some pillows up from reception, which I had not realised you could do. And I was not warm enough - there were not enough blankets. However, I did read the hotel's welcoming literature - a sheet of A4 paper with a paragraph in Arabic, French, and English, and considering the state of the place, it made quite amusing reading, as the translation left a lot to be desired!

Wednesday 7th May, 1997
Well, this was the last morning of our trip, we exchanged business cards/phone numbers with all the friends we had made on this wonderful and memorable adventure, I posted my last few postcards, and we left to go to the airport Mohammed V, a short distance outside of Casablanca, for our journey home. I had so many amazing experiences, and I shall have some wonderful memories to look back on.

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