Fez

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Fez, the Imperial City, has the original old part called the Medina and a modern new town. We stayed in a beautifully restored Riyad in the Medina and walked throughout the medina. We tried to get lost, but only got really lost on our last day there.

Fez claims to have the oldest University in the world, predating the Oxford religious instruction period. The Kairaouine Mosque and University in the centre of the Fez Medina is still considered the second most important place of Muslim learning in the world, after only Cairo.

The medina is basically one huge souq ... everything from fruits and vegetables to your inevitable carpets and leather goods. You can smell the tannery long before you get there. As mentioned, getting lost here is a right of passage, but we kept finding ourselves back on the main shopping souq area, even when we went out of our way to get into the residential alley-ways.

Our Riyad owner was very gracious and a perfect host. Much better than staying at a typical generic brand name hotel in the new town. The room came with breakfast included, and Moroccan mint tea was always served when we came back from any of our jaunts into the Medina.

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