Wednesday 24 December 2014

The Spice Souk

This morning I woke up with a sore left hip. Feeling slightly confused and wondering if I'd got my left and right muddled up Stu reminded me that a moped had bashed into me yesterday in the souks. Lo and behold a nice big bruise was visible on my leg :-( The souks are a dangerous place to be!

After breakfast we set off for the spice souk.  We weren't exactly sure where it was so opted to get, our first, taxi there.

As we were now used to doing, we negotiated the price. This included having to walk away at one point towards the second taxi which had pulled up hopefully behind it, but it was at this point the first taxi driver accepted our price. 5 minutes later we were at the spice souk, it was much closer than we realised!

The spice souk was tiny with just a handful of stalls. Above the souk was a huge sign proudly announcing the regeneration of the area which explains the lack of stalls. Things also don't seem to get started here until around 12pm so we were a little early!

We headed for one of the spice stalls and purchased a year's supply of paprika. Yum! And some eucalyptus crystals to help clear Stu's sinuses; is hugely powerful stuff - one sniff and your nose (and head) is completely clear!

We then found a small shopping complex full of gold (a gold souk?). Each of the tiny little shop windows were packed with intricate but extravagant gold and diamond rings.

A little further around the corner was a renovated Palais. Part of it is still lived in but the majority of it is open to the public (and cats sunning themselves in the entrance gardens).

The Palais had beautiful doors, ceilings and floors. The rooms just seemed to go on and on, separated by outdoor courtyards (and no cats!).

Once we'd finished admiring the doors in the Palais we headed back to the main square for some lunch.

After wandering through some souks we hadn't been through yet we found the Henna Cafe down a tiny side street. It's here that both local people and tourist volunteer to give language lessons and do henna art. For lunch we tried preserved lamb mixed with egg in their traditional bread which was gorgeous. We then made our way back to our Riad for a lazy afternoon, relaxing and reading on the roof.

No comments:

Post a Comment