Once Morocco’s capital, Fez can be divided into three main parts: Fes el-Bali (‘Fez the old’), the celebrated ancient medina (or medieval city), Fes el-Jdid (‘Fez the new’), and the Ville Nouvelle (also meaning ‘new town’, this time from the French colonial era). Fes, incidentally, is the normal French spelling whereas in English we generally know it as Fez.
The medina is a delight to explore; thought to be the largest car-free urban area worldwide, it contains many of the city’s finest sights. It is home to the Karaouine Mosque and University, one of the oldest learning institutions in the world, dating back to a time when Arabic learning was the most advanced in the world. The Nejjarine Museum of Arts and Crafts houses wooden handicrafts, including intricately carved stucco and cedar wood, inside what is a former funduq (lodging area for travelling merchants). The Museum of Andalusian Music is in a beautiful restored house, Dar Bennani. The medina, which has UNESCO world heritage status, also contains the huge expanse of souks (outdoor marketplaces), which have an array of locally crafted goods such as lanterns, jewellery, kaftans and babouches. Most of the products on sale in the souks have been made in the hundreds of tiny artisan workshops that abound in the centre of the city.
Just outside the medina can be found the Dar Bartha Museum, a late 19th-century palace, which has a particularly lovely garden, and is also widely known for being one of the main settings of the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music (see our Festivals & Events page).
Fez is also an ideal location from which to explore the Roman site of Volubilis, with some well-preserved mosaics, and the city of Meknes, yet another place to have enjoyed the status of being capital of Morocco, during the 17th century.
Click this link to go to a listing of little hotels in Fez.
