Fez’s medina is not a single attraction that can be covered by following one signposted loop. Its interlacing lanes form a working historic city, with homes, workshops, mosques, schools, markets and small squares sharing a dense urban fabric. For a first visit, the most useful question is not how many monuments can be ticked off, but how to move through the city without losing the thread of its geography, history and everyday life.
UNESCO dates Fez’s origins to the ninth century. The early settlement grew in two fortified quarters on opposite banks of the Fez wadi, associated with communities from al-Andalus and Kairouan. In the eleventh century, the Almoravids brought the town within one rampart; under the Almohads, Fez el-Bali expanded to roughly its present size. The Marinids founded Fez Jedid in 1276 to the west, adding a new political and residential center.