Three days in Fez: nine thousand lanes and not one car
Two nights in a riad inside the walls, one long day deep in Fes el-Bali, and a last morning on the hill looking down on it.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Fez
- Places
- 7 across 3 days
Fez is the one Moroccan city that does not soften itself for visitors. Fes el-Bali, the older of its two walled medinas, has around nine thousand lanes, no cars at all, and a working economy of tanners, weavers, coppersmiths and bakers going on around you rather than for you. It is the largest car-free urban area in the world, and goods still move through it on the backs of donkeys.
That makes it harder than Marrakech and, for a lot of people, better. Nothing here is arranged for a photograph. You come around a corner into a fourteenth century college with a carved cedar ceiling, and next to it is a man selling batteries.
Three days is enough for one properly deep day in the medina, plus two half days at the edges of it. Two nights inside the walls is the right choice: the medina is a different place at seven in the morning and after dark, and you only see that if you sleep in it.
Highlights
- Bou Inania Madrasa, the fourteenth century college non-Muslims are allowed inside
- The green roofs of the Qarawiyyin, a university since the year 859
- The Chouara tanning pits seen from a leather shop balcony, mint sprig in hand
- Sunrise from the Merenid Tombs, with the whole medina laid out below
Where to stay
Fez, two nights
Fez was the capital of Morocco on and off for several centuries and remains its intellectual centre. The Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri, is generally called the oldest continuously operating university in the world, and its library, which dates from 1359, is the oldest still working anywhere. The medina around it went onto the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1981 and is often compared to old Jerusalem for its density and its state of preservation.
Practically, the city is three parts. Fes el-Bali is the ancient medina and where you will spend nearly all your time. Fes el-Jdid, added by the Marinids in the thirteenth century, holds the royal palace gates and the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter. The ville nouvelle, west of both, has the station, the banks and very little else you need.
Day by day
Day 1 in Fez
Jnan Sbil, then Bou Inania at the top of Talaa Kbira
Arrive, get taken to the riad, and then walk into the medina from the western end, which is the gentle way in. The Jnan Sbil garden sits just outside the walls between Fes el-Jdid and Bab Boujloud, and forty minutes among its palms and water channels is a much better first hour than plunging straight into the souks with a suitcase still on your mind.
From the garden it is ten minutes uphill to Bab Boujloud, the blue-tiled gate that is the medina's front door: blue on the outside, green on the inside. Through it, Talaa Kbira starts its long descent, and a hundred metres down on the left is the Bou Inania Madrasa.
Go in. It is a Quranic college of the 1350s and the single most beautiful building in Fez that a non-Muslim is allowed to enter, a small courtyard of white marble with carved cedar, stucco and zellij on every surface and a canal running through the middle of it. Then eat somewhere on the Talaa and go to bed, because tomorrow is the long day.
- 16:00
Garden Jnan Sbil
NatureThe oldest garden in Fez, laid out by Sultan Moulay Abdallah in the eighteenth century and full of enormous old trees. Free, shaded, and five minutes from the medina gate.
- 17:15
Bou Inania Madrasa
OtherA fourteenth century college and the best Islamic architecture open to non-Muslims in the city. Half an hour is enough, but do look up at the ceilings.
- 19:15
Dinner on the Talaa
EatThe lanes below Bab Boujloud have terrace restaurants looking back at the gate. Order pastilla if you have never had it: pigeon or chicken, cinnamon, icing sugar, and stranger and better than it sounds.
With more time: If you arrive early, the Glaoui Palace is a twenty minute walk into the medina: a decaying private palace of the family that ran southern Morocco under the protectorate, half restored, still lived in, and shown to you by whoever is at the door.
Day 2 in Fez
Al Attarine, the Qarawiyyin and the tanning pits
One day, one direction: downhill from Bab Boujloud along Talaa Kbira into the heart of Fes el-Bali, where the university, the shrine and the old craft quarters all sit within a few hundred metres of each other. Start early, because the lanes narrow as you go and by ten in the morning they carry the whole city's traffic.
The Al Attarine Madrasa comes first, at the entrance to the spice and perfume souk it is named after. It is smaller than Bou Inania and if anything more finely worked, built by the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman II in the 1320s, with a roof terrace looking straight across to the green pyramidal roofs of the Qarawiyyin next door.
The Qarawiyyin itself you cannot enter, but you can walk its perimeter, and each of its many doors gives a slice of the courtyard and the prayer hall: brass, arcades, people going in to pray. In the afternoon, the tanneries. Go into one of the leather shops on the north side and climb to a balcony over the Chouara pits, where hides have been soaked in lime and pigeon droppings and dyed in stone vats laid out in a grid since the Middle Ages. Someone will hand you a sprig of mint at the door and you will want it.
- 09:00
Al Attarine Madrasa
OtherSmall, dense and less crowded than Bou Inania. Built in the 1320s, and the roof terrace is the reason to go up.
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- 10:30
Al Quaraouiyine mosque and library
CultureA university since 859 and still a working mosque, so non-Muslims stay outside. Circle the complex and look in through the doorways.
- 12:30
Lunch in the medina
EatRooftop places around the Nejjarine square and the Seffarine metalworkers' square do a set lunch for very little. Sit up high, out of the crush.
- 15:00
The Tanneries
OtherThe viewing balconies belong to leather shops and access is free, though you will be walked through the showroom on the way out. Boys who offer to guide you there in the street will want paying.
With more time: Two things within five minutes if the day still has energy in it: the shrine of Moulay Idriss II, which non-Muslims see from the doorway, and the Nejjarine Museum of wooden arts in a restored fondouk, whose rooftop cafe is the quietest seat in the medina.
Day 3 in Fez
The Merenid Tombs, the Mellah, and out
Take a taxi up to the Merenid Tombs first thing. They are ruined fourteenth century tombs on the hillside north of the walls, in themselves not much: a few crumbling chambers on an open slope. The reason to go is the view, which takes in the entire medina at once, with the minarets sticking up out of a solid field of flat roofs and the olive hills behind it. Early morning is cool and the light is coming from behind you.
Come down into Fes el-Jdid, the thirteenth century Marinid extension, and walk through the Mellah. This was the Jewish quarter, laid out beside the royal palace so its residents could be protected by the sultan, and its houses have the wooden balconies that face the street rather than the courtyard, which is the giveaway.
The Ibn Danan synagogue is the one to see: seventeenth century, restored, with a mikveh under the floor and a caretaker who will let you in and show you round. From there it is a short taxi to the station in the ville nouvelle or straight out to the airport.
- 08:00
Merenid Tombs
HistoricTen minutes by taxi from Bab Boujloud, then a short walk up. Go at eight, before the haze and the sellers arrive.
- 10:30
Synagogue Ibn Danan
ReligiousNo fixed hours; the guardian opens it for a small fee and gives you a short tour. The Jewish cemetery, white and steeply terraced, is a few minutes further on.
- 12:30
Taxi to the station
TravelTen minutes from Fes el-Jdid to the main station, or about twenty out to Sais airport.
With more time: Borj Sud, the fort on the opposite hill, gives the same panorama from the south and is almost always empty. If you have a late train, it is a better last hour than shopping.
Before you go
Where to stay
Sleep in the medina, in a riad or a dar. The old houses here are grander and less renovated than their Marrakech equivalents, often with a fountain in a tiled courtyard and four rooms around it, and the price is usually lower. Anywhere between Bab Boujloud and the Qarawiyyin puts the whole of the main day on foot.
The practical catch is that no vehicle can reach the door. Taxis stop at the nearest gate, and someone from the riad comes to meet you and carries the bags in on a handcart. Get the name of your gate before you arrive, because a taxi driver asked for a riad by name will often shrug.
The ville nouvelle, the French-built district around the train station, has the ordinary hotels. It is fine for one night before an early train and dull for anything else.
Finding your way
The received wisdom that you cannot walk the medina without a guide is wrong. Two main lanes, Talaa Kbira and Talaa Sghira, both run from Bab Boujloud down towards the Qarawiyyin, and following either one gets you into the middle. When you are lost, walk downhill: Fes el-Bali sits in a bowl and downhill eventually reaches Place R'cif, where there are taxis.
Unofficial guides will attach themselves to you, especially near the gates and on the way to the tanneries. They are a nuisance rather than a danger. Not answering at all works better than arguing, and looking as though you know where you are going works better still. If you do want a guide for the main day, hire a licensed one through your riad, which costs more and ends without an argument about money.
One phrase to learn: when you hear "balak" behind you, get against the wall. It means a loaded donkey is coming through and it is not going to stop.
Getting in and out
Fez has an international airport at Sais with low cost flights from across Europe, about twenty minutes out of town; bus 16 runs roughly hourly between the airport and the train station for a few dirhams, and a taxi is not expensive either.
By train, Fez is on the main line and easy: Rabat and Casablanca are a few hours west, Tangier is reachable in a day, and Meknes is about forty minutes away, which makes it a genuine morning out if you have a fourth day. The station is in the ville nouvelle, a ten minute taxi from the medina gates.
What to know
Mosques and shrines in Morocco are closed to non-Muslims, which in Fez includes the Qarawiyyin prayer hall and the tomb of the city's founder in the middle of the medina. You can see a surprising amount through the open doors, and it is normal to stand there and look; walking in is not.
The madrasas and museums are ticketed and cheap. Fridays are quieter, but Bou Inania closes to visitors around midday prayers. The Dar Batha Museum, the usual answer to a rainy afternoon, has been shut for a long renovation, so check before you walk across town to it.
Cover shoulders and knees, more so than in Marrakech. Fez is a religious and conservative city, and the medina is a residential neighbourhood rather than a tourist zone.
Fez asks more of a visitor than most cities, and gives back more. The medina is not a preserved quarter with a working city somewhere else; it is the working city, and after two days of it you start to read the lanes, hear the difference between a donkey and a handcart coming, and find the same corner twice without meaning to.
Leave with something bought from the person who made it, which here is easy: the tanners, the coppersmiths in Seffarine and the potters outside Bab Ftouh are all still at it, a few streets from where they have always been.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is three days enough for Fez?
- For the city itself, yes. One full day covers the core of Fes el-Bali, and the two half days handle the gardens, the Mellah and a viewpoint. Add a fourth day if you want Meknes, forty minutes away by train, and the Roman ruins at Volubilis beyond it.
- Do I need a guide in the medina?
- No. The two main lanes run downhill from Bab Boujloud to the middle of the medina, and downhill is always the way out. A licensed guide booked through your riad is worth it for one morning if you want the crafts explained, but the men who approach you in the street are not licensed.
- Fez or Marrakech?
- Fez is older, larger, less polished and more intact, and its medina is a working city rather than a shopping district. Marrakech is easier, sunnier and better set up for a short break. If you only have one, pick on that difference. If you have a week, the train links them in about seven hours.
- Do the tanneries smell?
- Yes. The pits use lime and pigeon droppings to strip the hides, and on a hot afternoon it is powerful. The mint sprig handed to you at the door genuinely helps, and the balconies are high enough that most people are fine.
- Can I change the days around?
- Copy the plan and rearrange it: the only ordering that matters is doing the deep medina day early enough in the morning to get through it before the lanes fill.