I slept like a dead thing last night – was much needed and much appreciated. Work travel is all good and well, but when the work back home (or in this case, in the Middle East) keeps going and you’re on even more unusual time zones that you’re accustomed to, it just creates different challenges.
We were up early hoping to see a few things in the morning so we could be back to work this afternoon. First up was the obligatory canal boat ride, to see a bit of the city from the waterways. Apparently 8 million people visited Bruges last year and it sounds like nearly all of them did the short boat trip on the canal which takes little over 30 minutes.
What a glorious day! Saint John Nepomuk, patron saint of boatmen, bridges, priests and all men who have something in common on the water.
Gruuthuse Palace named for the wealthiest family in Bruges in the 15thC.
The Djiver Marketplace, where markets are held every weekend in the summer.
This is the Spiegelrei (Mirror Quay) and it sits just opposite the Jan Van Eyck square with its statue (c.1878), and the “Poorterloge” with its tower.
Pelikaan (N°8) is a pediment house which features a pelican feeding its children with its own blood. It is the symbol of charity and these houses were created as social housing in the 15thC – they are still social housing, even though tiny houses along those canals are worth upwards of €800k.
The Church of Our Lady dominates the skyline on this side of town – it’s a beautiful building.
Palais du Franc is a former law court, now turned museum… like most of the beautiful old buildings in Bruges.
So the building below is the one that Colin Farrel jumped out of in the movie, ‘In Bruges’, which is part of the same hotel we are staying it… you can see our hotel window in this picture – it is the left window of the two with the white painted frames, just to the right of the shot. It’s a great little spot, with fantastic restaurants just downstairs, music and a great ambiance all round. It’s always nice to choose somewhere to stay and it turns out nicer than you had even hoped.
Every visitor to Bruges seems to come to this little point beside the canal for a now Insta-famous selfie spot.
Gabled rooflines were used as a symbol of seigneurial housing, and became the fashion of the powerful bourgeoisie of the free market towns.
Bricked in windows were also evident along the canals – for those who don’t know, many European countries established a window tax, as a way of taxing the rich, and for some people, they took to bricking up their windows to minimise their tax burden on their windows. It sounds ludicrous, but it’s true. It’s also where the term ‘daylight robbery’ comes from.
Tanner’s House.
Bruges’ swan population have been seen as a symbol of the city’s power and wealth since the 16thC.
After our short boat ride, we made our way to the Church to see the Madonna.
Bruge’s ‘Church of Our Lady’ is a Roman Catholic church dating mainly to the 13th to 15th centuries. It has a 115m tower that remains the tallest structure in Bruges and is apparently the third tallest brickwork* tower in the world (after two in Germany)… *not to be confused with stone work edifices.
The construction of the church is in a high gothic style with flying buttresses, which were constructed in 1270-1280. It has an impressive black and white marble floor throughout and several baroque style chapels emanating from the main nave.
Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.
Philippe Bernaerdt, 1660. Bruges. Oil on canvas.
Confessionals. Jacob Berger and Ludo Hagheman. 1697. Oak.
This heavily ornate row of baroque confessionals is considered one of the most beautiful example of its kind in existence. The figures represent numerous saints – St Jerome, St Augustine, Faith, St John, St Catharine of Alexandria, as well as the Virgin and Child and St Anne and St Peter.
De Baenst Chapel… named after the a prominent Bruges family.
Passion triptych, Bernard of Orley and Marcus Gerards, c1534. Oil on panel.
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy died at Nancy in 1477 and was finally laid to rest here in 1563. This painting was commissioned by his granddaughter, Margaret of Austria for the tomb of her own husband, Philibert II Duke of Savoy. Unfortunately the artist, Orley died before he could complete it and it was instead finished by Marcus Gerards the Elder and was later transferred to this chancel for Charles the Bold. It depicts the crucifixion, and side panels featuring the flagellation, the Way of the Cross, the Harrowing of Hell and the Lamentation. Waste not, want not, I guess.
Blessed Sacrament Chapel, Jean-Baptiste de Bethune. C.1863
*Interestingly, Bethune was the nephew of the then Bishop of the church and scored the job of decorating the sacristy from sheer nepotism. He created this entire space in the English style complete with murals and stained glass. They must have been happy with his work as he scored commissions for two more chapels of stained glass after this one.
Tomb of Mary of Burgundy, createdby Jan Borman and Reiner van Thienen. Gilded and enamelled by Pierre de Beckere. 1490-1502, Bruges.
Mary of Burgundy died after falling from her horse on 27 March, 1482 at the Prinsenhof (Ducal Palace) in Bruges. She was only 25 years old, but had ruled the Low Countries since the death of her father, Charles the Bold in 1477. She specifically requested to be buried in the Church of Our Lady. Her husband, Maximilian of Austria, commissioned this tomb in 1490 in a Gothic design. The side panels show her family tree on both her mother’s and father’s side.
While Charles has lions at his feet, his daughter Mary has two rather stunned looking puppies keeping her company in her skirts.
Coats of Arms of the Knights of the Golden Fleece
Pieter Coustain and Jan Hennecart, 1468, Bruges. Oil on panels.
Above the baroque choir stalls are 30 coats of arms of the prestigious Knights of the Golden Fleece. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy founded the order in 1430 on the occasion of his marriage to Isabella of Portugal.
From 8-10th of May 1468, the order held its meeting in this church and Charles the Bold presided over that meeting. Usually, a member of the order was retained for life, but could be expelled for failure to adhere to the rules of the order. Charles the Bold’s nephew, John of Burgundy was at one point, expelled. His coat of arms were painted black and removed from the choir stalls – the reason for his expulsion was said to be heresy and straying from the faith.
Tomb of Charles the Bold.
Worked by Jacques Jonghelinck (c.1558-1562), Bruges.
While the design of this tomb is extremely similar to that of his daughter’s, it was made nearly 70 years later and shows many signs of typical the Renaissance style – the style of his armour etc.
I can’t get over the detail on his garments – the textures applied that represent heavily embroidered clothing suitable for the noble classes and the expensive fabrics they favoured.
I found these two beautiful embroideries just outside the chancel that held the tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy – unfortunately there was no information available on them, and the musuem staff didn’t know much about them either. They are definitely Opus Anglicanum in style (the 3/4 figures and the elongated hands are very typical of that time frame) and the stitch work is definitely congruous with that supposition – but that could mean they are works from as early as the 13thC. Surely, they wouldn’t just be hanging on the wall in regular daylight if they were 700 years old…? Perhaps they are a fairly accomplished but more recent reproductions done in that style. Very curious…
This, second object was also similarly convincing.
The Madonna of Bruges is definitely the highlight of this cathedral. Sculpted by Michelangelo between 1501 to 1504, it is said to be one of the rare few items of his work that left Italy during his lifetime. It is in an usual arrangement for this subject matter – normally the Virgin and Child motif show a pious mother cradling and looking down on her child, but here you see Baby Jee standing unsupported and appearing almost ready to wander off. It has the typical early 16thC High Renaissance pyramid composition style frequently seen in works from the late 1400s onwards.
The Madonna has been removed twice from Belgium, after originally having been purchased by two wealthy cloth merchants (Giovanni and Alessandro Moscheroni) for 100 ducats in 1504… once during the French Revolution in 1794 and citizens of Bruges were ordered to ship it and other valuables to Paris. It was returned after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815. It was again removed in 1944 during WWII, with the retreat of German soldiers who smuggled it into an Austrian salt mine in Altaussee, where it was found a year later. Seems between this beautiful statue and the Ghent Altarpieces, we are inadvertently doing ‘The Monuments Men’ art tour of the Low Countries. It is stunningly beautiful, and most obviously a huge cut above the other statuary in the church.
Procession of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Snows. Anton Claeissens. 1575. Oil on panel.
This painting draws inspiration from the 4thC legend that Mary is said to have caused a miraculous snowfall on Mount Esquiline, one of the Seven Hills of Rome, in the middle of summer. She wanted to indicate that a church should be built for her on that spot, apparently.
This beautiful little random fresco on the actual wall of the church didn’t have any description accompanying it… but I was quite enamoured with the delicate calligraphy and how well preserved the colours were.
Popping back out into the daylight after the somber shuffling inside a cathedral/musuem like this, can often be a bit jarring. Bruges has certainly turned on a beautiful day for us and we wandered around town for a while checking out the architecture and of course, the famous belfry.
Oddly enough, at 83m high and 366 tiny winding steps, I shan’t be climbing it with this fooked knee of mine. All good, just means it stays on my list and I’ll have to come back. Maybe I’ll see if Mr K wants to climb it tomorrow. 🙂
Bruges has more chocolate shops than I have EVER seen in my life. There must be over 50 of them within a 500m radius of our hotel, they are everywhere.
We walked around behind the belfry to hunt for a more out of the way, quite spot for lunch. Everything here is at full on tourist prices, which I don’t mind so much, so long as you’re also able to get something quality for your Euro. We are skipping dinner tonight, so a decent lunch is the plan.
We found a nice cafe called Tompouce – Mr K was exceedingly happy with his large blonde beer that came out in a glass almost as big as his head.
Flemish stew – rich and delicious gravy with slow cooked beef.
Beef meatballs in a tomato sauce with mashed potatoes. There – dinner is done!
After our meal, we wandered around a bit, taking more pics of the architecture and searching out the hidden little nooks and crannies of the back streets. Bruges is super pretty and being a medieval town, it’s a rabbit warren of little treasures around every corner.
Ah, these pics are for Angus – he said he wanted me to bring back Belgian chocolates for him – but tbh, I woudln’t know where to start! I don’t really eat chocolate myself, and there is so many varieties on offer, it’s kinda overwhelming to try and choose something… plus, who asks for a gift from overseas that is 1) perishable, and 2) cost by the 100gms?! Doesn’t he know I have a luggage allowance to consider! 😉
I finally found the perfect chocolate present… though I dare say these aren’t the same quality as the fancy truffles above.
I also stumbled into a tapestry shop, Mille Fleur’s Tapestries, which contained all locally woven products… so many beautiful things in here, though I didn’t allow myself to get too far into the back of the shop where the obviously large and impressive pieces were. Instead, In content myself with a small Cushion Agenda… I found two fabulous designs based on the Bayeaux Tapestry, which of course, Mr K had absolutely no Cushion Opinon on, and so I have bought a couple for our media room at home. There were even Mondrian designs for BigSal, but I resisted… this time.
Gone was the soundstage with the makeshift concert venue set up for 40,000 people, gone were most of the snake charmers, monkey handlers, watermen, spruikers, and the heaving tide of humanity that we pushed through when we were here last. The place was just eeriely quiet. This is 10am on a Tuesday in Marrakech’s main square!
Literally, shop after shop, empty.
After our rather quiet (and I have to admit, pleasant) trip into the medina, we went to pick up some laundry and do a few errands before it was back to the hotel to play Tetris with the luggage – that’s always my job. Making it all fit in. We normally make sure we don’t buy things that need to be declared when coming back into Australia – it always just reeks of too much effort when you’re shattered from the long haul, but the handicrafts here have defeated us and we have several things that need to be declared, so I have carefully packed those for easy access at customs.
Spent the afternoon getting some work underway and packing. After that, though, we were too stuffed to go out to hunt and gather for food. So this is what we ordered from room service at our hotel – a Scillian pizza (with way too much capsicum and missing the requested anchovies), a kefta tagine (which was very tasty) and some Moroccan goats cheese and herb briouats (little filo pastry pies). It was extremely tasty.
After this, we managed to find a movie on the TV, (‘Man on a Ledge’, in English) and aimed for an early night. So much for that! Woke up at 04:17 and haven’t been able to get back to sleep which seriously sucks when I am facing a 24hr+ transit starting around 11:00. :/
Our room is the bottom one here – we were given the top floor, but gave it to Tess and Karl when I decided I didn’t really feel like walking up six flights of stairs every time we came and went from our room.
After breakfast, we ran into Jake and Tyson, who were chilling out using the wifi in a little fabric lined antechamber off the hotel lobby. They’re from California, both in college and travelling with their lovely grandparents, Chris and Allan. They’re really nice guys, though sometimes listening to how they talk to each other makes me laugh. They’re sure making themselves comfortable… 
Christian may be the only person we beat to breakfast, he’s from Quebec, and here he is looking out over the view from the terrace restaurant.
On our way to the telco, we wandered through some more residential type areas, which were just as blue as the main touristy streets.
We met a lovely lady at the Maroc Telecom who was able to assist me with my 4G problem, in spite of my halting French. She told me that my SIM wasn’t properly activated and promptly fixed it. Service with a smile from a telco – who knew such things even existed? After we left there, we decided to take a taxi around to the top of the springs where we pretty much started yesterday’s walk – it wasn’t much farther than we had just come, but it was all uphill through the very winding streets, and today was supposed to be a chill day – so we shelled out the exorbitant AUD$3 for a Petit Taxi. Got to the top and there were men selling photos with their birds… I managed to sneak a picture of the guy’s peacock – but the guy standing beside an ostrich taller than he was, eluded me.
And so we wandered through the narrow pedestrian walkways of the medina checking out the wares lining the streets… so many beautiful handmade things, so many beautiful blue alleys and so many very fancy doorways.
If felt like there were fewer people around this morning than yesterday evening – not sure if that was the case or if it was because we were trying to wander through the backstreets a bit more, but every time we stumbled back onto the main thoroughfares, it was not particularly crowded.
Very fancy and intricate painting on these doors… my image shrinker has lost a lot of the detail, unfortunately. 
Souvenir hand-embroidered cloths.
Me – standing in a very short, very blue, doorway.
There were so many very funky hand-knitted beanies everywhere, and I had to stop myself from buying some – but, I think I’ve finally learned my lesson. That lesson being – *You live in Brisbane and it’s rarely cold, you do not need twenty bloody woollen beanies collected from every weird place you go to!*. Well, at least the lesson seems to have held up for today, we will see if it makes it intact through the entire trip.
This fountain is fed from the beautiful fresh and clean spring that we went to yesterday, though I have no idea what they have been washing here to make it look so unappealing. Don’t care how clean the water is supposed to be, there’s no way I would fill my bottle from this fountain!
Gorgeous altogether!
In the back streets looking for interesting alleys and vistas and spied this very steep set of stairs… did a double-take and noticed this little guy:
Sitting around like he owned the place.
We stopped for lunch down in the main square. Coffee thick as mud, chicken shish, and kofka tagine. Doesn’t take long to decide you could sure get used to this – a long black, a lemon soft drink, two lovingly cooked and very tasty main meals served with free bread, and we were up for a hefty AUD$15.00.
Gorgeous facade on a local school:
We then made our way into the Kasbah to have a look around. The Kasbah in Chefchaouen was built in the 15thC and in contast to the blue city, it is terracotta-brown in appearance. 
The Chefchaouen Kasbah contains a lovely Andalusian-style garden and a former prison.
This prision reminds me of the one Kevin Costner finds himself detained in when captured by the Moors while on Crusade in the terribly historically inaccurate, but somewhat lovealbe film, (thanks Alan Rickman) Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (c.1990 something).
Looking out from the prison to the Andaluscian gardens. 
Amazingly there are at least half a dozen huge and very established gum trees in the garden. They might seem like a good idea, but I have a feeling if one of them comes down, they are giong to create one helluva mess of the ancient walls. 
The Center for Research and Andalusian Studies is also here and currently undergoing renovations, so we could only see the lower levels at the moment.
After that it was back through the mall by which time the buskers, touts, and generally annoying people trying to get your money had all started to turn out, and we decided it was time to head back to the hotel for a bit of rest before dinner with whoever turned out to be around at the time. 
The royal palace is a popular tourist stop for its enormous ornate bronze doors in gates heavily decorated with zellige tilework and carved cedarwood. The innumerable hours of hand-craftsmanship that goes into making these things is simply phenomenal.
Zellige is mosaic tilework technique that is achieved by taking individually chiselled geometric tiles and then setting them into a plaster base (for certain purposes, like small fountains, they use fibreglass to set them into place. It’s a really popular and prevalent form of Islamic art that we’ve seen replicated on a lot of Moroccan architecture. The geometric patterns are really appealing and you see them on walls, ceilings, fountains, floors, pools and tables. 
Off to the left of this main gate is a small ‘servants entrance’… frankly, they probably deserve to use the main entrance seeing they come and go way more than the King!
After a quick wander through the Jewish Quarter, we took a drive out to a lookout to have a look at the city of Fez. Fez is Morocco’s second largest city, behind Casablanca, with 1.4million peoples. It is largely locaed in a valley surrounded by the high grounds, and the old city or the Medina is divided by the River Fez which runs through the 9thC walled part of the city.
These pictures show how closely packed the Fez Medina is – it is believed to be the largest pedestrian zone in the world. Not a single vehicle can enter the medina as it is a completely bamboozling labyrinth of winding alleyways some of which are barely 70cm wide. Donkeys, mules and horses are the only form of transport in the medina and everything is transported in via animal or hand cart.
Walls of the Fez Medina…the holes in the walls are desinged to allow the high wind to pass through the walls rather than causing damage. Apparently the wind here gets so bad it can ‘knock over’ wall like this…
Before we threw caution to the aforemented wind and ventured into the Medina, we took a stop at a local mosaic and ceramic factory. Pictoral mosaics like the one below are not particularly common. Usually you see the traditional geometric, typically Islamic styles of art still being replicated in mosaic work.
Piles of clay come straight from quarries and have zero purification or cleansing before being put to use. 
Turned bowls drying before their first firing.
The kilns used are still traditional kilns that have been used for hundreds of years… the ground up dark dirt seen in the front is actually ground up olive pits which are added to the kiln fires. Something to do with the oils being beneficial in the firing process, but I’ll admit the explanation was a bit disjointed. 
Tile making in action – this guys spends all day making clay squares into more uniform, flat and tapered clay squares. :/ 
Painting the ceramics with glaze before the second firing.
Etching off the glaze before a second glaze is done. 
Mosaic work is painstakingly done by hand. From the drawing of the designs onto the nice square tiles the previous guy was making…
To the laying out of the design – upside down so the plaster can be poured onto the back to hold it together!
To the final chiselling of the finished product to clean up any irregular edges or overflowed plaster.
The end results of this meticulous and time consuming work are amazingly beautful artworks.
The World Heritage listed Fez al Bali Medina has alleys coming off alleys,stemming from alleys that are connected to even more alleys. Nearly all tourists who venture into this place come with a guide of some sort, becuase it is so easy to get completely lost and end up wandering around for kilometres to find your way out. We entered near a food section of covered markets. 
Dates, figs, seafood, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables, tea, grains, spices, herbs, and god knows what else was stashed into every available square inch of space in the covered shops. It is very similar to the Grand Bazaar in Isanbul. 
This man was selling live snails, and when he saw the tourists photographing his big tub of slimy delicacies, he started asking for money from people who shoved their cameras right over the tub of writhing creatures… tourists in the medina taking lots of photos and buying no produce must drive them crazy.
The camel heads hanging at the butcher’s shop is apparently the easiest way to tell people that you have camel meat in stock today. Little gory, definitely effective advertising. 
Seafoods – the large lumps of white flesh in the front of the table is some sort of local shark meat.
Not far from the fresh produce and food stuffs are was dyers lane. I could see all this silk hanging up and it piqued my interest immediately. Apparently this is ‘saba silk’, which allegedly comes from the agave cactus plant – yes, that agave plant. Disappointinly, from what I’ve read up on this thread though, the bulk of the ‘saba silk’ used in Morrocan crafts is actually rayon that has been manufactured in Spain or India and comes in bulk and is dyed here for local use. I don’t think people care that their item has rayon embroidery on it – but generally speaking I don’t think it’s ethical to lead people to think that their item is made from hand harvested agave and spun by local women into something beautiful, when it’s actually brough in pre-manufactured from India. This is one of those things you hear about and think: ‘yeah, not entirely surprised’. 
Just outside the dyer’s lane was a small bridge that gave a view of the Fez River which runs thorugh the medina. It’s difficult to see in this photo with such a high contrast ration, but I can tell you unequivocally that the fish and eel and other seafood stuffs being sold inside, does NOT come from this river.
We saw loads of these large cone shaped items around the place and had to ask Mustafa what they were – they are food coverings, and apparently these huge velvet and embroidered ones are used for covering bread… ’tis a far cry from the Brabante bread bin that adorns my kitchen!
I managed to see another man doing some metal work on one of these metal topped tables, and was just amazed at how detailed they were.
Further into the the medina we found ourselves moving into the leather area. Morocco is famous for its leather industry, and the medina has three tanneries contained within its walls.
From a balcony overlooking the tannery, you can see numerous stone pits filled with different coloured dyes and liquids. Hides of cows, sheep, goats, and camels are processed here – the first step is to soak them in a series of white liquids – this first stage of the process uses a liquid that is a varying mixture of cow urine, pigeon shit, quicklime, salt, and water. This cleans the often very tough skins, and it normally takes about two or three days. After the cleaning and scraping, they are soaked in various dyeing solutions. The tannery uses many natural colourants such as poppy for red, indigo for blue, and henna for orange – same as they have used since the 11thC. After the skins are dyed, they get spread out on rooftops for sun drying. The leather then gets sold to various craftsmen who use it to make Morocco’s famous leather goods: bags, coats, shoes, and slippers. The entire leather production process in Morocco is done completely by manual labour and uses no modern machinery. They have retained methods that are unchanged since the medieval period… which is just amazing but also completely nuts.
Thank the gods for that spring of mint – the stench was enough to turn your stomcah. I can’t imagine how anyone survives a visit up here in the summer, and I really don’t know how anyone survives working down there their whole life!
I love all these colourful ottomans… you buy them unstuffed and take them home and can stuf them with wadding, wool, rags, hair, whaterver you want. They’re not particularly small to transport though.
Deep in the heart of the medina is the Zaouia of Moulay Idriss II religious complex. It’s a shrine, a mosque and temple dedicated to the tomb of Idris II who ruled Morocco from 807 to 828 (or Moulay Idris II when you include his sharifian title). He was considered the founder of the city of Fes and the first Moroccan Islamic state. The shrine is UNESCO listed and is one of the holiest shrines in Morocco.
Men performing their ablutions prior to prayer.
There are multiple doors to the enormous religious complex and madras (religious university) which allow glimpses of life inside.
After this we took a well earned break for lunch – we had been walking the medina for a hectic three and a half hours… hectic because the place is packed shoulder to shoulder/cheek to jowl in many places. The ground is uneven and often slippery, it’s winding and there are ramps up and down all over the place, it’s easy to get lost and/or trampled by oncoming donkeys or men with handcarts. There is no dwardling in the medina without creating a traffic hazzard. It literally feels like there is no place to ‘be’ most of the time.
And also included some fabulous local dishes – a chicken pastille (chicken pie – shredded chicken with fruit and covered in cinamon and sugar), meatballs served with egg (this is rapidly turning into one of my fav Moroccan dishes), a beef tagine with almonds and prunes and some mixed grill skewers. Everything we’ve had here (with the exception of that first bland touristy restaurant) has been delicious.
After a wonderful shared lunch, we ventured back into the medina to have a few more glimpses into the various gates leading to the mosque and mausoleum complex. The artwork and elaborate decoration on the doorways, walls everywhere you look is astounding.
There are public fountains scattered throughout the medina, and while the water is safe for locals, tourists generally don’t have the constitution to deal with it… so it’s best avoided. 
Also connected to the mosque and mausoleaum complex is the University of al-Qarawiyyin which is THE oldest existing, continually operating higher educational institution in the world (according to both UNESCO and Guinness World Records). It was founded by in 859 AD with an associated madrasa, and subsequently became one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the historic Muslim world. It was only incorporated into Morocco’s modern state university system in 1963, but has been a formal institute of learning that entire time.
The small windows above are cells for the scholars who lived here… each has a bare room approximately 2m x 2m where they would dedicate themselves to Islamic religious and legal studies with a heavy emphasis on Classical Arabic grammar and linguistics and Maliki law. Some other non-Islamic studies are now also offered such as French and English.
We went upstairs to see the old student’s rooms, and were somewhat perturbed to notice that there were only locks on the doors on the outside of each room and small slots at eye level in each door… it felt more like a luxiourious detention centre than a student/monk’s type cell…?
After our visit to the monastery, we made our way deep into the textiles sector of the medina – now THIS, I was really looking forward to. I was hoping to gain some insight into the sabra silk situation and find out whether it is made from the agave plant or no. We saw a demonstration of someone weaving on an old treadle loom, and the man who seemed to run/own the shop handed around pieces of agave and told us the sabra silk is made from agave fibres. It certainly seems fibrous enough to create a thread – but we weren’t offered any more information than that. From there it was ‘on with the hard sell’, which was a bit unfortunate as we hadn’t experienced this in the ceramics workshop or the tannery. 
The ‘sabra silk’ items were mostly tablecloths and other durable items that most definitely felt somewhat ‘plasticy’ so I dare say it was all rayon and roughly woven at that. There was also loads and loads of pashmina and various garments, huge cotton tassels – no doubt all of which was imported. 
After this we were pretty much all medina’d out. Some of our group went on their own to find some more shopping and hunt for bargains, and some of us head back to the hotel to rest our weary feet. All up, it was an amazing day with so many sights and so much to see, but now I’m fucking exhausted! So it was back to the hotel for me for a chill evening of writing.
The Izmailovsky Markets are Moscow’s largest flea markets. With plenty of permanent vendors selling all the usual tourist offerings – dolls, furs, scarves, ceramics, wooden wares – right along side part-time or one-off vendors, selling collectable coins, military paraphernalia, tools, lapidary supplies, Soviet era memorabilia, gemstones and bayonets and spare magazines for your AK47.
So many dolls!
Around the Central House of Artists are a number of these large pavillions where local artists are exhibiting and presumably selling their paintings. The artistic genres and styles vary as much as the subject matter, and it is a great place to see how Muscovites are interpreting and representing their experiences here. The artworks were very impressive, if they were not so annoying to transport home, I would have loved to have delved in and chosen a special piece.
Overall, I have to ask… ‘exercise a high degree of caution’. Yeah. Why exactly? We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and are looking forward to seeing St Petersburg in a few weeks on the way back too.
I am just in love with this building. It is simply spectacular.
So I got some night pictures and was very happy with my wash. Another big day. Off to the hotel with us after that – we have an early start tomorrow to transit to Stockholm… and I was now officially ‘trudging’ all the way there. My poor feet!