About This Tour
Fez el Bali is the world's largest living medieval city — 9,000 alleyways, 300 mosques and the oldest university on earth, founded in 859 AD. Nothing prepares first-time visitors for the scale of it.
Your medina-born guide takes you through the souk system still organized by medieval guild: coppersmiths in one quarter, weavers in the next, spice merchants in the third. The Chouara tanneries — where leather has been dyed in the same stone vats for 1,000 years using pomegranate, saffron and indigo — are the most visceral living connection to medieval craft traditions anywhere in North Africa.
Also included: the 14th-century Bou Inania Medersa (the finest Islamic architecture in Fez), the Al-Attarine spice souk and Al-Qarawiyyin mosque — the oldest continuously operating university in the world since 859 AD.