Fez
Three hundred hectares of city without cars, where leather is still tanned and copper still beaten in the square
- When to go
- September 25° · 2 rainy days
- Per day
- €€price 2 of 5
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 12 km Saïss
- Right now
Fez needs two days, because the Fes el-Bali medina isn't done by map but in order: the first day with a licensed guide, the second on your own, along streets you've already walked. It's six and a half hours by train from Marrakech, mostly with a change in Casablanca, so Fez is a stop in its own right, not a day trip.
Fes el-Bali is some 300 hectares of city that no car enters, a UNESCO site since 1981. A guide on the first day isn't protection against scams but a saving of time: they show you how to get from the gate down the main street, Tala'a Kebira, to the Qarawiyyin and back, so on the second day you go without them and stop wherever you like.
Taxis, from the railway station and from the airport alike, stop at the gate of the medina; the riad is reached on foot, so for the first arrival arrange for the host or a porter to wait at the gate. Save the riad's location on your phone before you set out, because in the alleys you don't find your way by street address.
What to see in Fez
Bou Inania madrasa
Built by Sultan Abu Inan Faris in 1350–1355, it is one of the few religious buildings in Fez that non-Muslims may enter. It stands on Tala'a Kebira, a few minutes from Bab Boujloud; entry is €2. Make it the first stop, since the Qarawiyyin stays closed inside.
Al-Qarawiyyin
Founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, it is listed by UNESCO and Guinness as the oldest continuously operating university. The mosque is closed to non-Muslims: the courtyard can only be seen through an open door, so this is a stop of a minute, not an hour.
The Chouara Tannery
Stone pits of lime and dye in which leather is still tanned by hand. It can only be seen from the terraces of the leather shops around it: climbing up is free, but the owner expects a tip even if you buy nothing. The colours are strongest in the morning, from 8 to 11.
Place Seffarine
The coppersmiths' square, where Leo Africanus recorded them in the sixteenth century and where they still beat copper today. On its east side is the Saffarin madrasa of 1271, the oldest purpose-built madrasa in Morocco.
Bab Boujloud
The gate was put up by the French colonial administration in 1913 as a grand entrance to the old city: blue tiles outside, green within. Taxis stop here and Tala'a Kebira starts here, which also makes it the place to meet a guide.
- T
The Marinid Tombs
Ruins on a hill north of the medina, with a view over the whole of Fes el-Bali. The end of the second day, before sunset — after two days in the alleys, only from up here do you see where you've been.
Two things you probably did not know
The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fes was founded in 859 by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri. The Guinness book lists it as the oldest continuously operating university in the world.
The medina of Fes has around nine thousand lanes and is the largest car-free urban area in the world. Goods still move by donkey, because nothing wider fits through most of the passages.
Ready for Fez?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Fez — day trips or weekends.
Morocco
→The north by train, the south by road, and in July you leave Marrakech for the coast
Portugal
→A country that spent centuries looking at the ocean instead of the Europe behind it
Turkey
→Istanbul, then one direction: Cappadocia by plane, Ephesus and Pamukkale by train, or the Lycian coast by bus
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Chefchaouen, Rabat and Casablanca
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Fez if you have been.
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