crafts | G. S. Kenney Author

Crazy as Dan and I are for markets, it should come as no surprise that we stumbled upon not one but three of them while we were in Prague. One–the Havelske Trziste–is a permanent fixture of the Old Town. The other two, lacking names, seemed just to spring up, dare I say, to welcome us?

The Havelske Trziste (Havel’s Market) is a permanent market of fruits and vegetables, flowers, knick-knacks, and souvenirs. It’s small and charmingly situated in the middle of a pretty street. It seems to cater to tourists as much as to locals. While we were charmed–as we usually are, by markets–it wasn’t one of those ones that would knock you off your feet.

On our way to the palace compound, we stumbled upon a kind of French market in the Na Kampe Square just across the Charles Bridge in Lesser Town. There is no regular market in this square, although on July 14th they hold a French market here, across from the French embassy–as you might expect. This one, in early September, must have resulted from an excess of Francophile enthusiasm. We could have bought everything from olive oils to olives to grilled-vegetable wraps to lavender sachets and woven goods. There was even free music.

The next day, earmarked for exploration in a section of the old city known for its art-deco buildings and ornamentation…

…we came across a market that offered, among the fruits and vegetables and tourist goods…

…some interesting crafts. Here we watched a woman making hand-blown glass beads;

a stall selling sausages of venison and wild boar;

a stall selling home-made honey mead;

a craft brewery offering its wares next to a stall with hand-sewn cloth dolls and other items;

a woman weaving light-as-air shawls and afghans on an old-fashioned loom.

And–of all things–a team of people determined to make the Guinness Book of World Records with the World’s Largest Salad.

All of their work seems to be paying off: They’ve brought out the scale.

76.4kg!

And it’s beautiful!

Our next stop was a crafts shop. Dan, shopophobe that he is, took one look around, assessed the situation (they were going to try to sell us something), and decided to wait in the car. I went in–and I’m glad I did. A loom dominated the front of the store.

A small number of men were displaying their beautiful wares to a busload of tourists from, I think it was Korea.

A small number of Moroccan women, while not actually stopping their work, sat and watched the process. The women were beautiful.

And the wares were beautiful, too.

The one Korean man in the store and I shared a secret enjoyment at how the Korean women oohed and ahhed every time a fabric was spread out before them. We were immune to temptation, that man and I. I, because my disapproving husband was waiting in the car and I’d never be able to face him if I bought one of these beautiful things we didn’t need and would never use. The tourist gentleman because he knew his wife was already going to buy enough for both of them.

But we had a lot to do that day, and I didn’t want to keep Dan and Hicham waiting. Time to head on to Ait Ben Haddou. Ait Ben Haddou is a ksar, a fortified town of the high desert. It is so well preserved and restored that it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We parked in the village, which was dominated by shops selling postcards, souvenirs, and other tourist essentials, and walked down the trail toward the ksar.

On our way, we passed this modest dwelling…

…perhaps the home of this man and little boy, selling their wares to the tourists.

And then the ksar came into sight. Indeed, it was beautiful.

Ait Ben Haddou, originally an eleventh century caravan layover, is literally picture perfect. You may recognize it from Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth, Gladiator, and other films.

It was still fairly early in the morning, but the place was already crawling with tourists. Well, but what were we, after all, if not tourists? We should have gone in. But poor Dan had reached his limit of old kasbahs and medinas and ksars. After all, is not this region of the high desert the “Land of a Thousand Kasbahs”? And had we not already seen nine hundred of them? So this is the moment of confession: We decided not to go in. I regret this. But, hey, gotta save something for the next trip.

So, after a few moments, we headed off. Our destination: Marrakech. Our route: the serpentine Tizi n’Tichka pass. Luckily for us, the pass was not made impassable by snow, as it well might have been in December. As we drove north, the villages became fewer and the landscape more extraordinary.