Northern Morocco

Road-tripping From the Whitewashed Riads of Tangier to the Medina of Fez Requires an Appetite for Adventure and a Willingness to Get Lost. Just Make Sure to Byob.

- Yolanda Edwards

‘‘I don’t get it-it should be right here.”

I held out the map our hotel manager had drawn to my husband, Matt, and our 13-year-old daughter, Clara. We were looking for the Tangier Weavers’ Market—known locally as the Fondouk Chejra—and we’d been retracing our steps along a cobblestone street lined with stalls selling eggs and oranges, live chickens, and bottles of hair products. Everyone we asked in our usually reliable French shrugged or pointed us in a different direction, until finally Clara noticed an unmarked door behind one of the stalls. A flight of stairs brought us to a courtyard lined with dingy rooms full of men pedaling looms to make striped foutas, or towels. In one room, a few men knelt on small carpets. Eventually, we came to a bright and uncluttered space, where the workers were turning out altogether different weaves— featherweight scarves in bright geometric patterns and white bedspreads with colorful tufted tassels, as chic as anything you’d find at the Parisian concept store Merci.

That’s the thing about Tangier: On the surface, the city can feel totally foreign—the hallucinatory clamor of the medina, the frequent call to prayer over loudspeakers, the labyrinthine streets that trigger regular déjà vu (getting lost became a refrain of our trip). But then you walk down some narrow passage and stumble into the familiar: a wood-paneled piano bar where your martini is made exactly how you like it, a boutique selling modern caftans that wouldn’t look out of place at a Hamptons party.