A tale of two medieval cities: Fes and Florence

Earlier this year, in May, I visited Fes, Morocco. Specifically, Fes el Bali, the oldest of the three cities of Fes. The old medina in Fes el Bali dates back to 859, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and, some say, one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world. The old medina was simply amazing and, when walking the streets, one can see why there are no cars, some streets being just a loaded donkey wide! While in Fes I was also able to briefly visit the "new" city, Fes Jdid (dating from only 1276), and the "Ville Nouvelle" built by the French in the 20th century (our group went there for pizza one night when everyone but me it seems was tired of tangines!).

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And then, just back in November, was my next medieval city, Florence. Though dating back historically to pre-Christian Roman times, Florence really hit its urban stride just about 150 years after the founding of Fes, in around 1000. From there, it was all art and architecture (and banking and warring) for the next 600 years or so. 

Like Fes, Florence was full of narrow streets (not as narrow as Fes el Bali, but generally more suited to Vespas than autos); also like Fes, Florence is surrounded by the more modern Florence of wide highways and McDonald's. Also, filled with churches (instead of mosques), religion (in Florence perhaps more historically) has an inescapable religious tint.

And speaking of tints, rich browns were a shared color of both. Roof tiles, brick walls, all contributing to the colors of the cities.

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And just as an aside, let's not forget Taos Pueblo!

Now last plus one summer (2011) I was able to visit the Taos Pueblo (another UNESCO World Heritage site and the oldest continuously inhabited area of North America (dating from 1000, just a little younger, relatively speaking) than Fes.

The Taos Pueblo and Huxley's Brave New World ... a memory visited

The Pueblo people have always fascinated me. And of course, when you think about the Pueblos, the one that comes to mind first is the Taos Pueblo. As one of the longest continuously inhabited places on earth - and the longest in North America - it ranks alongside the Pyramids (in my mind) as the most significant structures created by humans.






 

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On this, my first trip to Santa Fe, the Taos Pueblo was my main goal. I had the chance to visit the Bandelier National Monument earlier on the trip so had the opportunity to see the ancient cliff dwelling Pueblo site there. It was a good introduction to the Taos Pueblo.

 

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Perhaps one of my first introductions to the Pueblo people came from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In Huxley's novel, the visitors from the Fordian future go to the "Malpais" Pueblo. I'm not sure which Pueblo Huxley modeled his fictional spot on, but in my mind, it was always Taos.

 

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Quotes from Brave New World

The journey was quite uneventful. The Blue Pacific Rocket was two and a half minutes early at New Orleans, lost four minutes in a tornado over Texas, but flew into a favourable air current at Longitude 95 West, and was able to land at Santa Fé less than forty seconds behind schedule time.

They slept that night at Santa Fé. The hotel was excellent—incomparably better, for example, than that horrible Aurora Bora Palace in which Lenina had suffered so much the previous summer. 

A bird’s-eye view of ten or a dozen of the principal pueblos, then a landing for lunch in the valley of Malpais. The rest-house was comfortable there, and up at the pueblo the savages would probably be celebrating their summer festival. It would be the best place to spend the night.

Uphill and down, across the deserts of salt or sand, through forests, into the violet depth of canyons, over crag and peak and table-topped mesa, the fence marched on and on, irresistibly the straight line, the geometrical symbol of triumphant human purpose.

The mesa was like a ship becalmed in a strait of lion-coloured dust. The channel wound between precipitous banks, and slanting from one wall to the other across the valley ran a streak of green—the river and its fields. On the prow of that stone ship in the centre of the strait, and seemingly a part of it, a shaped and geometrical outcrop of the naked rock, stood the pueblo of Malpais. Block above block, each story smaller than the one below, the tall houses rose like stepped and amputated pyramids into the blue sky. At their feet lay a straggle of low buildings, a criss-cross of walls; and on three sides the precipices fell sheer into the plain.

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In the Sangre de Cristo / The Blood of Christ Mountains

One and one-half wandering Jews
Free to wander wherever they choose
Are travelling together
In the Sangre de Cristo
The Blood of Christ Mountains
Of New Mexico
On the last leg of the journey
They started a long time ago
The arc of a love affair
Rainbows in the high desert air
Mountain passes slipping into stones
Hearts and bones
- Paul Simon, "Hearts and Bones"

At the Taos Pueblo

Quite an amazing place