Fes Travel Guide: Things to Do, Best Time & Tips

Fes is Morocco's oldest imperial city, and its medina, Fes el Bali, is the largest car-free urban area in the world — a medieval maze of more than nine thousand alleys built around a university older than any in Europe. This guide covers what actually matters for planning a visit.

Best Time to Visit

March to May and September to November bring comfortable temperatures for the extended medina walking a Fes visit is built around, without summer's extreme inland heat. Winter is mild by day but genuinely cold at night, similar to Marrakech, and riads without central heating can feel it.

Getting Around

The medina is entirely on foot — its lanes are too narrow and mazelike for any vehicle, including bicycles in most sections. This makes Fes el Bali more disorienting than Marrakech's medina for most first-time visitors, and many hire a local guide for at least their first day rather than trying to navigate it cold. Outside the medina, Fes el-Jdid and the Ville Nouvelle (new town) are reachable by petit taxi.

Where to Stay

Staying inside Fes el Bali, in a traditional riad, puts you closest to the major sights and gives you the fullest medina experience, though it means arranging to be met at a fixed landmark since riads here are as hard to find independently as in Marrakech. The Ville Nouvelle offers a more modern, convenient base with easier vehicle access, at the cost of the medina's atmosphere.

Top Things to Do

The Chouara Tannery is Fes's most famous sight — one of the oldest tanneries in the world, with dye pits arranged in a honeycomb pattern best viewed from surrounding leather shops' terraces rather than at ground level. Al Quaraouiyine, founded in 859 AD and recognized as the oldest continuously operating university in the world, cannot be entered by non-Muslims, but its courtyard and the surrounding madrasas, including the intricately tiled Bou Inania Madrasa, are viewable and worth the visit on their own.

Bab Boujloud, the ornate blue-and-green gate, marks a natural entry point into the medina and is worth photographing both from outside and from within. The Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts and Crafts, housed in a restored caravanserai, gives useful context on the crafts still practiced in the surrounding souks. For a wider view, the Marinid Tombs on the hills above the medina offer a panorama over the entire old city, especially good near sunset.

Food

Fes has its own distinct culinary reputation within Morocco, often considered the country's culinary capital. Pastilla — a sweet and savory pie traditionally made with pigeon or chicken, wrapped in warka pastry and dusted with sugar and cinnamon — is a Fes specialty worth seeking out specifically here. Beyond that, the same Moroccan staples as Marrakech apply: tagine, harira soup, and mint tea poured from height.

What to Pack

Comfortable, closed-toe shoes matter enormously given the medina's uneven stone lanes and steps. Modest dress — shoulders and knees covered — is worth defaulting to, as in any Moroccan medina. Cash is worth carrying, since many medina shops and smaller restaurants don't take cards.

Suggested Itinerary

A reasonable two-to-three-day shape: Bab Boujloud, the Chouara Tannery, and the university district on day one, the Nejjarine Museum and deeper medina souks on day two, and the Marinid Tombs plus any remaining sights on day three.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Declining a guide on your first day, assuming the medina will be navigable the way Marrakech's was, is one of the most common regrets first-time visitors report — Fes el Bali is genuinely larger and more disorienting. Unofficial "guides" who approach visitors at the gates offering unsolicited help are a known issue; politely declining and, if you want one, arranging a guide through your riad instead avoids the associated pressure to shop at commission-paying stores. And rushing Fes as a single-day stop from Marrakech or Casablanca shortchanges a city that rewards at least two full days.