Walking Fes el-Bali on a first visit

We will say this gently but plainly: on a first visit, hire a licensed guide. The medina folds through a dense web of lanes, a great many of them dead ends, and the lack of signage is by design: the city was built for people who already knew it by heart. A licensed guide (recognisable by the official badge issued by the Ministry of Tourism) does three things no map can: they walk you through the logical circuit so the highlights arrive in order, they open doors to working ateliers and family courtyards, and they soak up the steady attention of unofficial touts so you don't have to. A guide is quoted to your group size and hours, and a licensed guide is already part of every Fes itinerary.

Chouara is the image of Fes the whole world recognises: a honeycomb of stone vats brimming with dye and the old lime-and-pigeon mixture that has cured leather here since the 11th century. You view it from the leather-shop terraces ringing the rim. The shop will wave you up and press a sprig of fresh mint into your hand to hold under your nose, because the ammonia from the vats is no small thing. There is no obligation to buy, though the leather worked here is among the finest in Morocco and priced honestly at the source.

Come before 11:00 for the truest light and the fullest vats. By mid-afternoon the sun flattens the colour and many of the workers have broken for the day. A good guide will time it for you.

Founded in 859 CE by Fatima al-Fihri, al-Qarawiyyin holds a strong claim to being the oldest continuously operating university anywhere, running two centuries before Oxford. Non-Muslims cannot enter the mosque itself, but the carved cedar doorways that open onto the lane, and the slice of the green-tiled courtyard fountain glimpsed through the wrought-iron grilles, are among the most beautiful things in the city. Stand still for a moment and let the rhythm of the zellige settle.

A few steps away, the restored Nejjarine fountain and its caravanserai hold an excellent woodwork museum. A quarter of an hour on the museum rooftop buys you an aerial reading of the medina (minarets, terraces and tannery smoke) that no street-level photograph can.

Once the structured morning is done, ask your guide to leave you at the edge of the Andalusian quarter, the quieter half of the medina across the Oued Fes, and give yourself two hours with no plan at all. This side sees fewer visitors and softer selling: neighbourhood bakeries where people queue with unbaked loaves on wooden boards for the communal ferran to fire for a few dirhams, and the kind of doorway-and-shadow views that no app will ever route you toward.

When you are ready to surface, any local will point you to Bab Rcif or Bab Guissa within a minute. Getting lost in Fes is part of the gift; getting truly stuck is close to impossible.

Sleep inside the medina in a riad. The swing from the cramped lane outside to the light-filled courtyard within is the defining Fes sensation. We keep a short list of riads where the restoration was done with patience and respect for the craft rather than speed; ask us when you enquire about a Fes destination itinerary.

On the table, Fes is the culinary capital of Morocco. Pastilla, that improbable flaky pie of pigeon or chicken layered with almonds, cinnamon and icing sugar, is a Fassi invention, and nowhere makes it better. Order it as a starter in one of the rooftop rooms near the Bou Inania medersa. At lunch, ask your guide for a neighbourhood place where the set menu (harira, a tagine, mint tea) comes in under 80 MAD. Give the tourist-facing terraces on Rcif Square a miss; they plate the same food at three times the price.

March to May and September to November bring the best conditions: mild days between 18 and 26 °C, generous light across the rooftops and far thinner crowds than peak European summer. July and August in Fes can hit 40 °C with almost no shade in the lanes. Winter (December to February) runs cold and sometimes wet but is deeply atmospheric, wood smoke curling from the hammam chimneys and the medina at its most hushed.

If your dates are flexible and you are pairing Fes with Marrakech, think about taking the hotter nights in the higher-altitude south and arriving in Fes for the cooler shoulder of your trip.