What are the hidden gems in Fes?

Fes el-Bali overwhelms people, so they tend to tick off the big tannery and the Al-Attarine madrasa and retreat. But the city's real rewards come from going slightly off-script. My first send is always up the hill at dusk to the ruined Marinid Tombs, just outside the northern walls. There's nothing to pay and nothing fenced off — you simply stand on the hillside as the whole vast medina glows below you, the call to prayer rising from a thousand rooftops at once. It's the single best view in Fes and it's completely free.

Inside the walls, the Nejjarine square is a quiet gem most rush past: a beautifully tiled fountain and, beside it, the Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts and Crafts in a restored fondouk, with — again — a wonderful rooftop café with hardly anyone on it. For the tanneries, the trick is the viewpoint, not the leather shop: several terraces overlook the dye pits, and going early morning means the light is good, the smell is milder and the pressure to buy is gentler. You hand back the sprig of mint they give you and just look.

Across the river, the Andalusian quarter (Andalous) is the Fes most tourists never reach — a steeper, sleepier half of the medina with its own grand mosque and gate, far fewer stalls and a much more residential, lived-in feel. Wandering here, getting pleasantly lost, is where you actually meet Fassi daily life rather than the souvenir machine. The working fondouks — old caravanserais now used as craft workshops and warehouses — are scattered around too, and poking your head into one to watch coppersmiths or weavers is a quiet thrill.

Two honest notes. Fes is a true labyrinth and these gems take effort to find; I'd genuinely recommend a good local guide for at least your first half-day to orient you, then explore solo once you've got your bearings. And accept that getting lost is part of it — some of my own favourite Fes discoveries came from a wrong turn into a silent dead-end lane with a single carved doorway. Slow down, look up, open the odd door, and the city quietly gives up its best.