Medina- Rabat

A couple of years ago Joe and I saw a commercial advertising Glade's newest fragrance "Moroccan Marketplace".  We looked at each other and burst out laughing because we figured if it was like any other  Middle Eastern/African marketplace it would smell of unpleasant body odor, raw fish and meat with a hint of raw sewage thrown in and frankly, who doesn't want their home to smell like that?

Our local "Moroccan Marketplace" is downtown or Centre Ville in the Medina, which means "old city".  Part of the medina is residences but for the most part it is the market wherein you can find just about anything IF you know where to look (and we certainly don't).  Because we live about 15 minutes away out in the 'burbs, we had not yet ventured into the medina.

But today was the day.

Entrance

Fish prices.  Anyone notice the "Chien de mer" at the bottom?  'Chien' in french is dog, so that translates to "dogfish"  ??

One of the fish stalls

Olives and such

I can only hope that this picture and the ground meat in front of it had NOTHING to do with each other.

Beautiful produce.  I buy ours at a similar stand nearer to our house.

Our gang

Caftan anyone?

Spices, kernels, nuts.  Actually one of the few good smells if the right breeze comes by.

Perusing the goods

Pretty door.  Yellow is "in" right now, you know

Rabat is by no means known for its medina, especially compared to Fes or Marrakech.  We weren't really tempted to buy anything- it definitely seemed more geared towards locals than tourists.  However, it was a good experience and we came away with a couple of DVDs and an adapter component-ish thing we needed for our phone.  And the boys had plenty to look at and did great.  

About the blog layout- I think google tried to throw out this new blog format but hadn't yet worked out all the bugs and from what I can understand, it may be a few weeks until things get back towards normal-ish.  

Have a great weekend everyone!