The most distinctive Moroccan pottery is made in Fes. We visited a pottery workshop as part of our Fes Old City tour. In the workshop there were two main products - pottery and mosaics

First of all the clay has to be "made" in a process of drying, soaking and bleaching.

The potter starts with a lump of clay and with his feet stepping on the big wheel below he spins it around to form a jug or bowl or whatever he wants.
Then it's out to the sun to dry.

All the Fassi pottery is handpainted. We watched this man paint a bowl. It took about 10 minutes. 

The pottery is fired in one of these special ovens. 
​And the finished product......

.....my favourite porridge bowl!

Mosaics are also made in the same workshop. Think of making a giant jigsaw-forever! That's what making a mosaic seemed to be like. There are some similarities with the pottery process. The tiles have to be fired in the huge ovens. 

In this part of the workshop, workers have to break the tiles into small pieces for the mosaic making.

The pieces are then passed onto the mosaic maker. In the photograph above he is making a frame for a mirror. This mosaic will take him days. He lays out the pieces upside down and then glues a wooden covering to the back. It is a long, slow process, requiring a lot of concentration.
Some of the bigger pieces photographed take months. 

Driving around Marrakech and passing through the other Moroccan cities, you would think the shopping might be very similar to home. 

However, outside of these big cities, shopping is a lot different.

Moroccans do their shopping in their local médina or souq.
Most dictionaries define a médina as the old walled part of a North African town. 
A souq is defined as an open air market found in Asian and North African towns. 
As part of our tour, we had time to visit the médina's of Rabat, Fes and Marrakech. Each were interesting, busy and very loud!
While initially it seems chaotic, médinas usually have sections: meat, breads, spices, fruit/veg, clothes, furniture, household items. Local people know exactly where to go to get their fresh produce for their cooking. Look closely at the photographs to identify fruit and vegetables we find on our supermarket shelves which originate in Morocco. 

The médina passageways are really narrow and you can only imagine how hard it must be for the shop owners to bring their produce through.  Donkeys, hand carts and motorbikes are used. There doesn't seem to be any restrictions on motorised vehicles -once it fits, it's allowed to go through!

There were many craft areas/workshops at the edges of the médina. In Fes and Marrakech we visited the leather souq, the furniture souq, the carpet souq and the ceramic souq. Craftsmen work on their products in their workshops. Nowadays, a display or show for tourists is ready for viewing. Usually the owner or manager with fluent English will lead tourists around the workshop explaining the process and finish in the shop where the tourists are encouraged to buy souvenirs.

As part of our tour of the Medina of Fez, we visited a tannery. Unfortunately the tannery was just after a clean and refurbishment so we could only imagine the process of a working tannery and browse the shop.

A few weeks later in the Médina of Marrakech when I lost my way (again!) a "helpful" man offered to show me back to the main square....via a tannery! While the pop-up tour was a bit annoying, it was a working tannery and it was very interesting. 
The first impression as you walk closer to the tannery or leather souq is the smell. It is horrendous.
My guide gave me a bunch of mint leaves and told me to keep smelling the mint when I got inside. 
In Marrakech there was no balcony for tourist viewing, I was brought into the floor of the "factory". This process hasn't changed much in 900 years.

Yes, that's a donkey and cart!

Watch this video to get an idea of the leather making process.

Most of the leather is from sheep or goat hide. Many of the shops claimed to be selling camel leather but in reality most of the leather was sheep or goat!
As Abdel explained in the clip above the process starts with
​1. Washing the skin
2. Cutting the skin so it can lie flat.
3. Limestone is then put on the skin and after 4/5 hours the wool is taken off. 
4. Wool is put on the terrace to dry and the skin is taken to the white lime pool and left there for 15 days. The water and lime is changed every 5 days.  This part of the process removes all stains from the skin.
5. The skin is then taken to the wheel to wash for 1 or 2 hours.
6. The skin is put into a pool of water and pigeon poo. The pigeon poo is high in ammonia and softens the skin.
7. The skin is taken to the wheel again for a wash.
8. Time for the dyeing pool. As Abdel explained above, the tannery only uses natural dyes. 
9. The skin is then dried and ready to be used to make shoes, clothing, handbags or furniture. 

The use of the pigeon poo gives Moroccan leather the edge on other leathers. Thankfully the finished products don't carry the awful smell! Apparently people keep pigeons in Morocco to sell their excrement to the leather souqs. Who knew this common bird could be so useful!
Working in a tannery as you can see from the photos is not an easy job. The men wear very little protective equipment, have uncovered feet and wear no masks or safety goggles. Added to this is 40 degree heat and dangerous fumes. 
So what did Ms Treacy purchase you might ask!
Well...eventhough my Marrakech tannery tour was more or less forced on me, I couldn't leave the leather shop behind without making a few purchases. One of these was this pink purse. Goat leather I was told!

I splashed out in the factory shop in Fez and got myself this beautiful Camel leather pouffe.  I like to rest my feet on it in front of the fire and remember the same heat from the Moroccan sun!