Over the last 10 years Morocco has witnessed a monumental economic boom largely as a result of foreign money coming ino the country. The medinas of Fez, and in particular, Marrakech, are the most striking examples of this phenomenon. This image shows a guide in the foreground and a "riad" under renovation in the background. The word "riad" refers to a typical house (normally in the medina or old town) set around a courtyard. Such buildings would have started out life as private houses, koranic colleges or as coach houses (known locally as Foundouks) before being renovated. Clearly a medina the size of Marrakech is home to thousands of such houses, so the majority remain in the hands oif local families, but those which have been restored are generally used as guest houses - havens of charm and tranquility hidden behind unassuming doorways in the warren of alleyways in the country's medieval medinas. Being an older city than Marrakech, and being traditionally an artisan centre, Fez has extraordinary riches behind its cedar doors, and although it is behind Marrakech in terms of development of this nature, the quality and style of buildings and the quality of craftsmanship is often better. Riads in Fez tend to be much more traditional, respecting time-old building techniques and tend to be finished with locally-made materials. The sheer scale of tourism in Marrakech, and the city's new-found cosmopolitan reputation, go some way to explaining the diversity in styles and standards of riad development there. Here you can find hundreds of riad guest houses from basic places charging £20 a night to world-class establishments costing several hundred pounds a night. This picture shows what was probably a Koranic college, such is the quality of the craftsmanship. UNESCO have funded a number of such renovations in the Fez medina using the finest craftsmen to carry out the work. Typically buildings of this nature date back more than five hundred years and exhibit fine examples of carved cedarwood (from forests in the nearby Middle Atlas Mountain range), beautiful fired ceramic tiles (from Fez itself or from Safi on the Atlantic Coast), and extraordinary sculpted stucco work (decorative plaster). As Marrakech becomes more touristy, foreign investors are now looking more and more to Fez as a place to buy a ruined property at a knock-down price. The days of the bargain riad in Marrakech are, for the most part, gone, but there may still be some baragins on offer in Fez.....
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