Dar Rbab
Stay with an Anglo-Moroccan family in Fes Medina
A renovated traditional dar, situated in the medina of Fes el Bali, close to the famous Palais Jamai hotel. The house is in the region of 300 years old, and has all the features associated with historic houses in Fes. The centre of the two storey building is a courtyard, with pillars supporting balconies at the first floor. Access to all the principal rooms is by massive sets of cedarwood double doors, elaborately decorated and gilded on their inner sides.
Other features include traditional zillage - hand cut mosiac tiles, and ornate stucco.
Dar Rbab is not a hotel or maison d’hote. It is a family home to myself, my wife Ghizlane, and our young daughter, Ayah. We welcome guests and we hope that the experience will give you a deeper understanding of what life is like in Morocco.
We have a maximum of three double bedrooms, all with en suite bathrooms.
The ground floor has a comfortable salon, courtyard and dining room.
We have a full time housekeeper and nanny; families with children are welcome. There is a broadband Wifi link available more or less throughout the house.
It’s a very interesting and alternative solution for your holiday accommodation, providing an insight into real life in the medina from a historic house. Rates per night also compare very well with hotels and Riad Maison d’Hote!
Prices
Rates start at 30 Euros a night and go up to 160 Euros a night for 3 couples occupying the whole house.
About Fes
Fes is an extraordinary city. It is the world’s largest Medina, and a truly ancient city, founded in 799, according to legend.
The city’s character is still medieval. Craftsmen work in tiny stone booths doubling as their shops; goods are still delivered by pack-mule or donkey. The town’s magnificent ochre walls still surround the medina, and access to the winding alleys of the depths of the city is still via the numerous ancient gates. Cars cannot penetrate beyond R’Cif, a street built over a watercourse, and the source of the town’s name. A golden axe was found here – Fas in Arabic.
The fortunes of the town and its inhabitants have fluctuated wildly over the years. With each wave of prosperity, the town has been endowed with a succession of magnificent houses and palaces. The last were built in the closing years of the 19 th Century, as Fes slipped into decadent decline with the end of independent rule by the Sultans. It is still possible to find 600 year old houses, buried in the depths of the medina. Their style is still similar. The accommodation arranged round a courtyard, often with pillars supporting a balcony. The houses are large, designed to be airy enough to withstand the fierce summer heat. There are lofty ceilings, huge cedar wood doors, and windows shaded by iron grills or traditional woodwork. Cool, intricate tile work line the floors, and every house has a fountain.
The French encouraged the movement of Morocco’s administrative capital to Rabat before 1912. Since then, Fes has been sidelined; a relic of a magnificent Imperial past, littered with palaces, mosques and medersas, but shorn of the machinery of government.
Most aristocratic Moroccan families preserved their family seat in the old capital. For years, it was regarded as unacceptable to sell your palatial Fassi house to anyone except those of equal social standing, such was the prestige attached to the town.
Happily, this is no longer the case!