Fez

The medina is the sight — the largest car-free urban area on earth, a heaving maze of nine thousand lanes of craftsmen, food stalls, mosques and mules, unchanged in centuries. Surrender to it: you will get lost, a boy will offer to guide you out, and every turn brings a new trade, smell or hidden doorway. Nowhere in the world is quite like it.

Fez's unforgettable icon — the medieval Chouara tannery, a honeycomb of stone vats of coloured dye where workers still treat leather exactly as they did in the 11th century. View it from the terraces of the surrounding leather shops (they'll hand you a sprig of mint for the smell); the sight of the vats from above is pure Fez.

Founded in 859, the oldest continuously operating university in the world, and the spiritual heart of Fez — a vast mosque and library at the centre of the medina. Non-Muslims can't enter the prayer hall, but you can glimpse the great courtyard through its gates and doorways, and the restored library is a marvel of Moroccan craftsmanship.

The finest of Fez's medieval Quranic colleges, and one of the few religious buildings non-Muslims may enter — a jewel-box of intricate zellij tilework, carved cedar and stucco, and Arabic calligraphy around a serene marble courtyard. A masterpiece of Marinid art, and a cool, quiet oasis in the middle of the medina bustle.

A smaller, even more exquisite 14th-century college beside the spice-and-perfume souk near the Qarawiyyin — a perfect little courtyard where every surface is worked in carved plaster, cedar and coloured tile. Less crowded than Bou Inania and just as breathtaking; the detail of the craftsmanship rewards a long, slow look upward.

The grand, horseshoe-arched main gate into the old medina, glazed with blue tiles on the outside and green (the colour of Islam) within — the classic Fez photograph and the natural starting point for a plunge into the souks. The cafés around it are perfect for a mint tea while you gather your courage for the maze beyond.

Fez is a working medieval city, and its souks are organised by trade — the coppersmiths' square ringing with hammers, the dyers' lane hung with wet skeins, the spice, carpet, brass and babouche-slipper stalls. Less polished and pushy than Marrakech, more authentic; wander, watch the artisans at work, and haggle gently for the real thing.

Fez is Morocco's culinary capital, and the medina is one long feast — bowls of harira soup, sardine sandwiches, snails in broth, sticky sesame chebakia and the local speciality, a sweet-savoury bastilla pie of pigeon and almonds dusted with cinnamon. Eat where the locals queue, and finish with a glass of sweet mint tea.

A beautifully restored 18th-century caravanserai (merchants' inn) housing a museum of woodcraft — carved doors, tools and old ceilings — beside one of the medina's loveliest tiled fountains. Worth it as much for the building and its rooftop café view over the medina as for the exhibits; a serene, elegant pause in the chaos.

The medina is best understood from above — climb to a riad or café rooftop for a glass of sweet mint tea and watch the sea of green-tiled roofs, minarets and satellite dishes spread to the hills, storks nesting on the walls, the call to prayer rolling across it all at dusk. The essential Fez moment of calm.

Across the little river from the main souks lies the quieter, older Andalusian quarter, settled by refugees from Muslim Spain — steep lanes climbing to the fine Andalusian Mosque with its monumental gate. Far fewer tourists reach here; it's a rewarding wander through a more residential, deeply traditional side of the old city.

On the hillside above the northern walls stand the ruined Marinid tombs, and from beside them the whole medina lies spread out below you in its bowl — a sea of flat roofs and minarets, magical at sunset as the light turns golden and the muezzins begin. A short taxi up; the best overview of Fez there is.

You can't go inside the working royal palace, but its façade on the wide square of Fes el-Jdid is a sight in itself — seven monumental brass doors gleaming against carved cedar and blue-and-green zellij, among the finest craftsmanship in Morocco. A dazzling, and much-photographed, five minutes on the edge of the Mellah.

The old Jewish quarter of Fes el-Jdid, with its distinctive wooden-balconied houses (a contrast to the blank walls of the Muslim medina), a restored synagogue and the poignant, white-tombed Jewish cemetery. A quieter, layered corner that tells another chapter of the city's long, cosmopolitan history.

Fez is the home of Morocco's famous blue-and-white pottery and its intricate zellij mosaic tilework. At a workshop on the city's edge you can watch potters throw and paint by hand, and craftsmen chip and lay the tiny tiles into geometric patterns — a fascinating look at the skills behind everything you've admired all day, with a shop at the end.