Where you sleep in Fez decides what kind of trip you have, more than in almost any other Moroccan city. The medina is enormous, ancient and closed to cars; the Ville Nouvelle is orderly, modern and twenty minutes away from everything you came to see. Both are defensible. Choosing without knowing the trade-off is not.
Key facts
- Fes el-Bali, the old medina, is the largest car-free urban area in the world — arrive at a gate and walk in.
- Ville Nouvelle is the French-built new town: wide streets, parking, chain reliability.
- Fes el-Jdid sits between them, quieter and often cheaper.
- Luggage: most medina riads will send a porter to the nearest gate. Arrange it in advance.
The medina: riads and dars
This is the reason to come. A Fez riad is a courtyard house of carved plaster, cedar and zellij tile, and even modest ones can be spectacular — the city's craft traditions never stopped, so restoration work here is the real thing rather than pastiche.
Riad Fès, a Relais & Châteaux property assembled from historic houses with a terrace looking over the medina, and Palais Faraj, converted from a nineteenth-century palace on the medina's southern edge, are the two names most often cited at the top end. Palais Amani and Karawan Riad occupy similar territory with a smaller footprint.
The trade-offs: lanes are steep and confusing after dark, the call to prayer arrives early and from several directions, and nothing arrives by car. Most guests decide this is the point.
