Tours in Fes

Fes is the oldest of the imperial cities and the one that never modernised its centre. Fes el-Bali, the old medina, is one of the largest car-free urban areas anywhere. Goods still move by donkey and handcart. You hear balak before you see the load.

The city grew around a river and a mosque. Al-Qarawiyyin was founded by a merchant's daughter in 859 and is counted as the world's oldest continuously running university. Non-Muslims see it through the doorways. The madrasas beside it are open to everyone.

The medina is a slope, and almost everything hangs off two lanes running down it.

• Bab Boujeloud — the main gate, blue tiles outside and green within, and the top of both lanes.
• Talaa Kebira and Talaa Seghira — the big climb and the small one, market the whole way, meeting near the Qarawiyyin.
• Bou Inania and Al-Attarine — two madrasas of carved cedar, stucco and zellij, both open to non-Muslims.
• Chouara tannery — stone vats of lime and dye, seen from the leather shops above, where a sprig of mint is handed over at the door.
• Fes el-Jdid — the newer walled quarter with the Mellah and the brass gates of the royal palace.
• The Merenid tombs — ruins on the hill north of the walls, and the place to watch the medina at dusk.

Fes is a craft city more than a monument city. Workshops run in guild order: brass at Seffarine, pottery outside the walls at Ain Nokbi, weavers on their own lanes. Most of them take visitors. The point of a guide here is not history but direction.

The day trips from Fes go east and south. Merzouga and the dunes of Erg Chebbi are a shorter approach from here than from Marrakesh, two days rather than three. Meknes and the Roman mosaics at Volubilis make an easy day west. The cedar forest at Azrou, with its macaques, is an hour up into the Middle Atlas.

Practical

• Getting lost. Unavoidable and mostly harmless. The medina slopes, so downhill leads to the river and the Qarawiyyin, uphill to a gate and a taxi.
• The old line. Being told the tannery is closed today is an opening, not a fact. So is a boy who walks ahead of you and then asks to be paid.
• Weather. Inland and enclosed: summer afternoons past 38C, winter nights near freezing, and riads built against the heat rather than the cold.
• Donkeys and luggage. No car reaches most riads, so a porter with a cart meets you at the gate. When someone shouts balak, stand flat against the wall.
• Getting here. Trains take four hours from Tangier or Casablanca and seven from Marrakesh; the station is in the new town.
• Friday. The medina thins at midday prayers and many workshops shut for the afternoon.