How many days do you need in Fes?

1. 1Fes el-BaliBou Inania, the souks, Chouara Tannery in the morning1 day
2. 2Fes el-Jdid & Marinid Tombsroyal quarter, Mellah, sunset view1 day
3. 3Volubilis, Moulay Idriss & Meknesabout 1 hour 15 minutes to 1.5 hours to Volubilis by road1 day

The short answer by trip length

• 1 day: Bab Bou Jeloud, the Bou Inania Madrasa, Tala'a Kebira, Place Seffarine and the tannery. You see the essentials of Fes el-Bali and nothing else.

• 2 days: the right minimum. Add Fes el-Jdid, the Mellah and the Marinid Tombs at sunset.

• 3 days: what we had. Add a day trip to Volubilis, Moulay Idriss and Meknes, or a slower second day in the medina.

• 4 or more: only if Fes is your base for the Middle Atlas or you want long afternoons on a riad roof.

Fes is not a city of big sights spread far apart; it is one enormous medina of more than 9,000 lanes, as our Fes guide puts it. Everything takes longer than the map suggests, which is why a single day feels like a sprint.

Day by day: 3 days in Fes

Day 1, Fes el-Bali. Enter at Bab Bou Jeloud, the Blue Gate, and visit the Bou Inania Madrasa just inside, one of the few religious buildings in Fes non-Muslims can enter, for its carved cedar and stucco. Walk down Tala'a Kebira through the food and leather stalls to the Attarine Madrasa, look into the Al-Qarawiyyin mosque and university from the doorway (non-Muslims cannot go in), and continue to Place Seffarine for the coppersmiths. Reach the Chouara Tannery in the morning, when the vats are busiest and the light is best, and view it from one of the leather shops' rooftop terraces.

Day 2, Fes el-Jdid and the hills. Fes el-Jdid, the 13th-century royal town, is flatter and calmer: the brass doors of the Royal Palace, Dar el-Makhzen, the Mellah, and the Jnan Sbil gardens between the two medinas. In the late afternoon, walk or take a petit taxi up to the Marinid Tombs for the view over the whole bowl of the medina at sunset.

Day 3, Volubilis, Moulay Idriss and Meknes. Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman site in Morocco, is roughly 80 km from Fes, about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1.5 hours by car. The holy town of Moulay Idriss is a few kilometres away, and Meknes is on the way back; guided day trips covering all three take about 8 hours. Without a car, the train from Fes to Meknes takes about 40 minutes, and taxis go on from Meknes to Volubilis.

Read our souk haggling guide before day one: the tannery terraces are free to enter, but they are shops, and a tip or a small purchase is expected. For mosques and madrasas, see the Morocco mosque dress code.

Where you sleep shapes these days. A riad inside Fes el-Bali near Bab Bou Jeloud or Batha puts the madrasas and souks a few minutes away on foot, which matters because cars cannot enter the old medina: taxis stop at the nearest gate, and riads often send someone to meet you there and carry bags in. Staying in the Ville Nouvelle is easier to reach by car but adds a taxi ride to every visit to the medina.

Where Fes fits in a wider route

Fes is the natural middle of a north-to-south trip. Ours went Tangier (3 days), Chefchaouen (3), Fes (3), then down to Rabat (2), Casablanca (1), Essaouira (2) and Marrakech. Chefchaouen to Fes is about 4 to 4.5 hours on the CTM bus; see the Fes to Chefchaouen guide, which covers the same road in reverse, and our 2 days in Chefchaouen.

Leaving Fes, ONCF trains reach Rabat in about 3 hours, and Marrakech in about 6.5 to 7 hours, a long day that most people still prefer to the bus. Casablanca is on the same line if you want to see the Hassan II Mosque. The whole route, with what we would change, is in our 24-day Morocco itinerary, and how many days in Marrakech picks up at the other end.

When to go to Fes

March to May and October to November are the best months, warm enough for rooftop evenings but comfortable in the enclosed lanes. Fes sits inland and gets hot in summer; we were there at the start of September, when the pattern that works is the medina in the morning, the riad through the afternoon, and the Marinid Tombs at sunset.

During Ramadan, expected from about 8 February to 9 March in 2027, the medina keeps working but many stalls and cafés shut through the day; see visiting Morocco during Ramadan 2027.

Common mistakes

• Doing Fes as a day trip or a single night. Arriving in the afternoon and leaving the next morning gets you the tannery and little else.

• Accepting a guide from the street. Unofficial guides steer you to commission shops. Hire a licensed guide through your riad for the first morning, or navigate offline and ask shopkeepers for Bab Bou Jeloud when lost.

• Going to the tannery in the afternoon. The work and the light are better in the morning.

• Tipping by guesswork. Riad staff, guides and the tannery terraces each have their own norms; see our Morocco tipping guide and what is considered rude in Morocco.

Frequently asked questions