Fes keeps its art indoors: behind studded doors sit palace museums, a woodcraft caravanserai and a conservatory of Andalusian music. Three days of carved cedar, cobalt faience, coppersmiths and courtyard concerts.
A 19th-century Hispano-Moorish summer palace holding Fes's finest zellige panels, Marinid carved cedar and the cobalt 'bleu de Fès' ceramics collection. Reopened in 2025 after a full restoration; open 10:00–18:00, closed Tuesdays.
The 18th-century Funduq al-Najjariyyin, a caravanserai restored into a museum of woodcraft: Berber cedar chests, wedding thrones, carved mashrabiya screens and Atlas cedar tools across three galleries around a soaring courtyard.
Built 1323–25 by Sultan Abu Said Uthman beside the spice market, this compact Marinid school packs starburst zellige, Kufic stucco friezes and a bronze-clad door around a small marble courtyard. Open daily 09:00–18:00.
A crumbling 19th-century pasha's palace of seventeen courtyards, stables, harem quarters and faded painted ceilings, now part studio for the resident painter Abdou Glaoui, whose canvases hang in the old reception rooms.
A 1582 Saadian fortress built by Ahmed al-Mansour, now an arms museum of some 5,000 pieces — Neolithic axes, silver-inlaid Moroccan muskets, Ottoman sabres and the cannon from the Battle of the Three Kings.
Ruined 14th-century Marinid royal mausolea on the hillside above Fes el-Bali — bare rubble walls with traces of carved plaster, and the one spot where the whole medina's minarets and tiled roofs read as a single plan.
An 18th-century Alaouite palace with a vast tiled courtyard, restored as the city conservatory of Arab-Andalusian music. Students rehearse oud, rebab and nay most afternoons and the sound carries through the arcades.
A converted courtyard house on Derb el-Magana staging Hikayat storytelling in Darija and English, Sufi and Gnaoua sessions and oud nights on its rooftop and mezzanine, most evenings from around 19:00.
The potters' quarter outside Bab Ftouh, where olive-pit kilns fire Fes blue faience and craftsmen chip zellige tesserae by hand with the menqach hammer. Workshop walk-throughs are free; finished pieces start around 50 MAD.
A triangular square of coppersmiths hammering trays and couscous cauldrons under a lone plane tree, set against the walls of the al-Qarawiyyin library founded in 859 — the oldest continuously operating library in the world.
A 17th-century synagogue in the Jewish quarter with a carved cedar ark, wrought-iron bimah and a mikveh in the cellar. The whitewashed tombs of the Jewish cemetery and the balconied Mellah houses are minutes away.
Royal gardens laid out in the 18th century between the medina and the Mellah — bamboo groves, a restored Andalusian waterwheel and a palm alley, beside the Bab al-Makina parade ground used for the Sacred Music Festival.