The Fes el-Bali Medina (the walled city of Fez) is the largest urban pedestrian zone in the world. It contains nearly 10,000 narrow alleyways and stretches for miles. I always love doing new and different things, so this was right up my alley (haha). Since I can get lost in my own town, I wasn’t quite sure how this would go. GPS doesn’t work here, and people frequently lose their way and end up paying someone to guide them out. In fact, a GPS company once tried to map the medina so tourists could navigate it, but after two years, they gave up.
Thankfully, we had locals with us to keep us on track, and our tour leader kept up a steady patter: “Stay together, watch your step, don’t block the road, don’t walk in the middle—stay to the side…1111”
Our first stop was a ceramics factory just outside the medina, where several of us tried our hands at the wheel.
In another area, flat glazed tiles are chiseled into tiny pieces that miraculously fit perfectly together.
The streets are incredibly narrow, but hidden behind the humble, sometimes crumbling walls are vast and beautiful homes, schools, workshops, mosques, restaurants—everything you’d expect in a vibrant city of 100,000 people.
Lunch in the medina was the best meal I’ve had here—and the food has been wonderful. It was the Moroccan version of chicken pot pie, filled with meat, ground nuts, and cinnamon, and topped with powdered sugar. 😋
Next stop: the tannery
For dinner, we cooked our own chicken tagine with preserved lemons. It was fun to explore the rich flavors of Moroccan spices.
Marsh Travels 
What a fun and really interesting day. Camel Belly? One of your pictures is of a brass shop, is the brass similar to the brass in Turkey? How long has the tannery been continuously running? I am so fascinated.
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