History & crafts

Fes

Fes el-Bali is the largest car-free urban area on Earth and the world's oldest living medina — 9,000 alleys where donkeys still deliver the goods and artisans work the way their great-great-grandparents did.

It's the city that rewards a local guide more than any other in Morocco, and Ahmanar's Fassi hosts are legendary for it.

Don't miss

Top things to do

  1. 1Get lost in Fes el-Bali — surrender to the maze; the medina always spits you out somewhere interesting.
  2. 2Chouara tanneries — the thousand-year-old dye pits, viewed (with a sprig of mint for the smell) from the leather-shop terraces.
  3. 3Al Quaraouiyine & Bou Inania Madrasa — the world's oldest university and the medina's most beautiful carved courtyard.
  4. 4Artisan quarters — watch coppersmiths, weavers, and zellige cutters at work, and buy straight from the source.
  5. 5Marinid Tombs at sunset — the hilltop ruin with the definitive panorama of the whole medina as the call to prayer rolls across it.
  6. 6Fassi food tour — b'ssara for breakfast, camel-meat burgers, pastilla, and the medina's oldest honey souk.

Good to know

Best time to visit
March–May and September–November; summer inside the medina's walls gets fierce.
Getting there
Direct trains from Casablanca and Rabat, buses from Chefchaouen (~4h), plus Fes–Saïss airport with European routes.
Budget feel
Restored riads cost less than Marrakech equivalents; a personal local guide for a day is money better spent than anywhere else in Morocco.

Walk Fes with a local

Fassi hosts on Ahmanar share the medina they grew up in — shortcuts, workshops, and the good street food.

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