Fes

Fes is the oldest of Morocco's imperial cities and, for many, its most intoxicating. The Fes el-Bali medina is the largest car-free urban area on earth, a UNESCO-listed labyrinth of some nine thousand lanes where the rhythms of medieval life continue almost unchanged. Donkeys still carry goods to workshops, muezzins call from a thousand minarets, and behind unassuming doors lie palaces of breathtaking beauty.

This is the country's spiritual and intellectual heart. The Al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859, is recognised as the world's oldest continuously operating university, and the Bou Inania and Al-Attarine madrasas dazzle with carved plaster, cedar and zellige tilework. Fes is equally the capital of Moroccan craft: the theatrical Chouara tanneries, where leather is still dyed in stone vats of colour, the brass beaters of the Seffarine square, and the potters firing their signature Fassi blue.

For the luxury traveller, Fes offers restored riad palaces of extraordinary artistry and a private guide is indispensable to navigate and interpret its depth. It is a place to engage all the senses — to taste a pastilla, to watch a master craftsman at work, to feel the weight of more than a thousand years of history in a single, unforgettable city.