What are the best rooftop views in Fes?

Fes is, geographically, a city you are meant to look down on — the old medina sits in a bowl surrounded by hills, a dense sea of flat green-tiled roofs and minarets, so the rooftop view is one of its great pleasures. The most accessible and often the loveliest is simply your own riad's terrace at sunset. Almost every restored riad has a roof terrace, and as the light goes golden and the muezzins begin the evening call to prayer rolling across the rooftops from a hundred minarets at once, it is genuinely one of the most atmospheric experiences in Morocco. Time your first evening to be up there with a pot of mint tea.

For a wider, more designed view, a few spots stand out. The Hotel Sahrai, a sleek modern hotel on the slope above the medina, has a rooftop bar and pool with a sweeping panorama and is one of the few places in Fes for a proper sundowner with a view. Down in the heart of the old city, the grand riad Palais Amani has a beautiful upper terrace where you can dine or take a drink over the rooftops, and the long-running Café Clock — tucked near the Bou Inania medersa — has a small terrace beloved of travellers, alongside its cultural events and famous camel burger.

The terrace of the Ruined Garden restaurant, set among the greenery of a tumbledown house, gives a more intimate, leafy version of the rooftop experience right inside the medina. But for the single biggest, most jaw-dropping panorama, you leave the medina altogether: drive or taxi up to the Merinid Tombs, the ruined royal tombs on the hillside to the north of the city. From up there at golden hour, the entire medina lies spread out below you — the whole walled labyrinth, the river, the minarets, the smoke of the tanneries — with the hills behind. It is the classic "whole of Fes" shot.

My honest guidance: combine the two scales — be on a medina terrace (yours or a restaurant's) for the intimate sunset-and-call-to-prayer moment, and go up to the Merinid Tombs at least once for the grand panorama, ideally late afternoon into golden hour. Some of the best terraces belong to hotels and restaurants, so you may need to buy a drink or a meal to enjoy them, which is a fair trade. The light is softest and the view best at the edges of the day, so plan around sunrise or sunset rather than harsh midday. Venues and their terraces change, so confirm a place is open and its terrace accessible before you build an evening around it.