A first-timer’s guide to the Fez medina

Fez el-Bali is the largest car-free urban area in the world, and the statistic undersells the experience. You do not tour this medina so much as submit to it.

Go with a guide, at least the first day

This is not a failure of nerve. A good guide is the difference between a stressful maze and a legible city — and they will get you into workshops and rooftops you would never find alone.

Start early

The medina wakes slowly. Before nine the lanes belong to deliveries, bread ovens and cats, and the light falls in shafts through the reed roofs.

Things worth seeking out

• The Chouara tanneries — visit from a leather shop's terrace; they hand you mint for the smell.
• Al-Attarine Madrasa — small, and among the finest zellij work in the country.
• A communal bread oven — every quarter has one, and watching it work explains the neighbourhood.

Practical notes

Wear shoes you can walk five miles in. Carry small notes. Accept that you will get lost — and that getting lost is, more or less, the point.