You will get lost in Fes. Everyone does, and you should let it happen. The medina of Fes el-Bali is not a place you conquer with a map; it's a place you submit to — nine thousand lanes folding in on themselves, some no wider than your shoulders, opening without warning onto a fountain, a mosque doorway hung with brass lamps, or a donkey laden with hides picking its way toward the tanneries. This is the oldest of Morocco's imperial cities and, many argue, its spiritual and intellectual soul. It is also one of the last great medieval cities on earth still living as it always has.
And then, when the intensity of the medina has filled you up, the mountains are right there. South and west of the city the land buckles into the Middle and High Atlas — cedar forests, Berber villages, snow-capped peaks — offering a counterpoint of silence and sky. Together they make one of the most complete journeys in North Africa: the density of human history, and the vast indifference of the mountains.
It is worth saying plainly what Fes is not. It is not Marrakech. Where Marrakech has learned to perform for visitors — the polished riads, the curated souks, the Instagram-ready Jardin Majorelle — Fes remains stubbornly, gloriously itself. The medina is a working city, not a stage set: the tanneries tan, the coppersmiths hammer, the students still cross the courtyards of ancient schools with books under their arms. That authenticity comes at a price in comfort and legibility — it is harder, hotter, more bewildering — but it is precisely why travellers who love Fes tend to love it fiercely, and why they come back.
Fes el-Bali: The World's Largest Living Medina
Founded in the late 8th century by the Idrisid dynasty, Fes el-Bali is the old walled heart of the city, and its scale is genuinely hard to grasp until you're inside it. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1981 — the first place in Morocco to earn the distinction — and it is routinely described as one of the largest car-free urban zones on the planet. There are no cars because there is no room for them; goods move by handcart, donkey and mule, exactly as they have for a millennium.
The medina of Fes el-Bali was founded as the capital of the Idrisid dynasty between 789 and 808 AD and was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1981; it is widely regarded as the largest car-free urban area in the world. [1]
At the medina's heart stands its most extraordinary institution. The University of al-Qarawiyyin was founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri, a woman of Tunisian descent who spent her inheritance to build a mosque and teaching complex. It has never stopped operating since.
The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fes, founded in 859 CE by Fatima al-Fihri, is recognised by both UNESCO and Guinness World Records as the oldest continuously operating, degree-granting educational institution in the world. [2]
The sensory centrepiece of any visit is the Chouara tannery, a honeycomb of stone vats seen best from the leather shops' balconies above. Hides are softened in a foul-smelling cocktail — pigeon droppings supply the ammonia — then dyed in pits of henna, indigo, poppy and saffron, in a process essentially unchanged since the Middle Ages. They'll hand you a sprig of mint to hold to your nose. Take it.
Beyond the tannery, seek out the Bou Inania Madrasa, a 14th-century Marinid school that is a jewel box of carved cedar, sculpted plaster and geometric zellij tilework; the medieval water clock opposite; and the Mellah, one of Morocco's oldest Jewish quarters. Above all, give yourself unstructured hours simply to wander Talaa Kebira, the medina's spinal thoroughfare, past coppersmiths, spice pyramids and men pressing olives.
Where to Stay and How the City Works
Sleep inside the medina, in a riad — a traditional courtyard house turned into a small guesthouse. From a plain alley door you step into a cool, tiled inner world of fountains and orange trees, often with a rooftop terrace looking out over the sea of flat roofs toward the minaret of al-Qarawiyyin. It's the only way to feel the rhythm of the place: the dawn call to prayer, the click of the muezzin, the medina waking up around you.
Fes is also the country's culinary capital, and its cooking reflects centuries of courtly refinement and the influence of the Sephardic Jewish community, who brought techniques like pickling and olive-curing. The city's signature dish is pastilla (b'stila) — a flaky warka-pastry pie, traditionally of pigeon or chicken, layered with almonds and spices and dusted, startlingly, with cinnamon and icing sugar.
A practical word on the medina's rhythm. Distances that look trivial on a map take far longer on foot, because you will stop constantly — to let a mule pass, to peer into a workshop, to accept a mint tea you didn't intend to buy. Fridays are quieter as the city goes to the mosque and to family couscous lunches; the souks are liveliest in the late morning and again after the afternoon heat breaks. Carry cash in small dirham notes, haggle without heat (it's a conversation, not a war), and accept early on that you will pay a little more than a local. It is the cost of admission to one of the last medieval cities still breathing.
To the Mountains: The Atlas Beyond Fes
Drive south from Fes and within an hour or two the medina's intensity gives way to the Middle Atlas — cool cedar forests around Ifrane and Azrou, where Barbary macaques loiter by the roadside and the architecture turns, incongruously, Alpine. This is the gentle overture. For serious mountains, the High Atlas to the south, most easily accessed from Marrakech, delivers the drama: Berber villages terraced into valley walls, mule trails, and the highest summits in North Africa.
The prize peak is Mount Toubkal. Trekkers base themselves in the village of Imlil, sleep at a mountain refuge around 3,200 metres, and make a pre-dawn push for a summit that repays the effort with a panorama across most of the Atlas ranges.
Mount Toubkal (Jebel Toubkal) stands at 4,167 metres (13,671 feet), making it the highest peak in Morocco, the Atlas Mountains, North Africa and the Arab world. [3]
You don't need to be a mountaineer. Toubkal is a non-technical trek graded moderate-to-challenging — the difficulty is altitude and long days on steep, rocky ground rather than ropes and crampons (though winter adds snow and demands proper kit and a guide). Most people summit over two days from Imlil, hiking six to eight hours a day. Licensed local mountain guides are inexpensive and, for a first Atlas trek, well worth engaging.
- Middle Atlas (1–2 hrs from Fes) — Ifrane, Azrou cedar forest, Barbary macaques, day trips
- Imlil — the traditional trailhead village for Toubkal, reached via Marrakech
- Toubkal Refuge (~3,200 m) — overnight base before the pre-dawn summit push
- Mount Toubkal (4,167 m) — North Africa's highest peak, a 2-day non-technical trek
- Berber villages — terraced valleys, walnut groves and mint tea by invitation
If a two-day summit push is more than you want, the Atlas rewards gentler ambitions just as richly. Day walks and one- or two-night village-to-village treks through the valleys around Imlil, the Ourika valley or the Ait Bougmez ('Happy Valley') take you between mud-brick hamlets, walnut and cherry orchards and terraced fields, with nights spent in family-run gites where dinner is whatever the household is eating. Trekking with a local Berber guide isn't just safer and easier — it turns a walk into an encounter, opening doors (sometimes literally) to the mountain hospitality that is the region's quiet glory: a glass of sweet mint tea poured from a great height, pressed on you before you've caught your breath.
The medina teaches you to look down — at your feet, at the next turn, at the man carrying a mirror through a crowd. The mountains teach you to look up again. You need both to understand Morocco.
— Yassine El Fassi
When to Go
Fes is best in spring (March–May) and autumn (September–November), when the medina's heat is manageable and the light is kind. High summer can be punishing in the alleys, though the mountains stay cooler; winter is atmospheric and quiet in the city but genuinely cold, and it closes higher trekking routes with snow. For Toubkal, late spring through early autumn is the standard trekking window; a winter ascent is a full mountaineering undertaking. If you can, pair a spring medina visit with a Middle Atlas day trip when the meadows are green.
Getting There and Getting Around
Fes has its own international airport (Fès–Saïss) with connections across Europe, and it sits on Morocco's rail network — the train from Casablanca or Rabat is comfortable and scenic. Within the medina you walk, full stop; arrange for your riad to send a porter with a cart to meet you at the nearest gate (Bab Bou Jeloud, the 'Blue Gate', is the classic entrance). For the Atlas, you'll want a hired car with driver or an organised transfer; the High Atlas and Toubkal are most efficiently reached by basing yourself in or transiting through Marrakech, about a day's drive south.
Where to Eat
Fassi cooking is Morocco's most refined, and eating here runs the full range — a 15-dirham bowl of bissara soup at a medina stand, a candlelit riad dinner, or an ambitious tasting menu that put Fes on the global gastronomic map. These are the addresses worth planning around.
Between the grand meals, graze the way Fassis do. A wedge of msemen (flaky griddle bread) folded around honey for breakfast; a fistful of warm chickpeas or roasted almonds from a cart; sticky, syrup-drenched chebakia pastries stacked in shop windows, especially around Ramadan; and always, everywhere, mint tea — the so-called Berber whisky — poured in a long ribbon from height to raise a froth. The medina's food is not incidental to the experience of Fes; it is the experience, a daily, edible argument for slowing down.
Finish an evening the Fassi way, on a riad rooftop with a glass of sweet mint tea as the call to prayer rolls across the rooftops from a hundred minarets at once. The mountains you climbed a few days before are out there somewhere in the dusk, and the medina is settling into its ancient night. It is a sound — and a city — you will be chasing for years afterward.
Sources & further reading
- 1. Wikipedia — Fes el Bali (Idrisid founding 789–808, UNESCO 1981, al-Qarawiyyin)
- 2. Britannica — Fes (oldest imperial city, Qarawiyyin founded 859) / Guinness & UNESCO oldest university
- 3. Wikipedia — Toubkal (4,167 m, highest peak in North Africa)
- 4. National Geographic — Where to eat in Fez, Morocco (Nur, Ruined Garden, Café Clock, bissara)
- 5. MaJourneys — Best Restaurants in Fez 2026 (L'Amandier, Palais Faraj)
- 6. Much Better Adventures — Climbing Mount Toubkal (trek grading, altitude, itinerary)
