Our private Fes City Tour offers an immersive Moroccan experience. Fes is the city we send people to when they want the real, working medieval Morocco — not a museum of it. Our Fes city tour is a private, full-day walk through Fes el-Bali, the largest car-free medina on earth, with one of our guides who grew up in its lanes. You start at the blue Bab Boujloud gate and disappear into a maze of nine thousand alleys where donkeys still carry the loads.
You stand over the Fes Chouara tanneries with a sprig of mint to your nose, step into the green-tiled courtyard of the Al-Qarawiyyin — the oldest still-running university in the world — and the carved cedar and stucco of the Bou Inania madrasa. We thread the souks of the coppersmiths and dyers, past the smell of cedar shavings and fresh mint, to a rooftop lunch over the sea of green roofs.
Travelling on? Fes is the start of our 3-day Sahara desert tour from Fes.
Our private Fes City Tour offers an immersive Moroccan experience. This fes medina tour covers every essential Fes el-Bali landmark with a licensed local guide.
Combining your fes guided tour with the Sahara? Pair this with our 2 Day Fes to Merzouga Desert Tour or 3 Day Sahara Tour from Fes.
Pickup at 9:00 AM from your Fes hotel or riad. We start at the Royal Palace (Dar al-Makhzen) — the palace itself is closed, but its seven brass-studded cedar doors framed in zellige are the classic first photo of Fes. We walk into the Mellah, the 14th-century Jewish quarter, for the Ibn Danan Synagogue, the old cemetery, and the wrought-iron balconies you do not see in the Muslim medina, then through Fes el-Jdid, with an optional climb to the Merenid Tombs for the view over the whole city.
We enter the old medina through the blue Bab Boujloud and start at the Bou Inania madrasa (14th century), about the finest Marinid work in the country — carved stucco, hand-cut zellige, cedar muqarnas. Then the artisan souks: the spice market, the henna souk under its old plane tree, the silk weavers, and the coppersmiths’ quarter where the hammers ring from every doorway.
Lunch is your own choice on a rooftop over the medina — pastilla, rfissa, mint tea. We see the Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 AD by Fatima al-Fihriya and the oldest running university in the world (the prayer hall is for Muslims, but you can look in on the courtyard and fountains), and the jewel-box Al-Attarine madrasa.
The high point of the afternoon is the Chouara tanneries: we climb to the best balcony over the stone dye vats — saffron yellow, poppy red, indigo blue, henna brown — where leather has been worked the same way for a thousand years, and you hold a sprig of mint to your nose for the smell.
We cross to the Andalusian quarter, founded in 818 AD by refugees from Cordoba, for its mosque (from outside) and quieter lanes, and drop you back around 5:00 PM (or 1:00 PM for the half-day).
When you want to walk the old capital, send us a message.
Our private Fes City Tour offers an immersive Moroccan experience.
Our private Fes City Tour offers an immersive Moroccan experience.
Walking route: Royal Palace gates → Mellah → Fes el-Jdid → Merenid Tombs (optional) → Bab Boujloud → Bou Inania Madrasa → souks → Al-Qarawiyyin → Al-Attarine Madrasa → Chouara Tanneries → Andalusian quarter
Total walking distance: ~6 km (gentle pace, several rest/photo stops)
