Fes

Fes is the deep well of Morocco. Founded in the late 8th century by Idris I, the city became the intellectual capital of the western Islamic world — home to al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 CE by Fatima al-Fihri, a woman whose endowment created what UNESCO and Guinness recognize as the oldest continuously operating university on earth. Scholars from across Africa, al-Andalus and the Middle East studied here; the trans-Saharan book trade linked its libraries to Timbuktu's. Fes el-Bali, the old medina, is the world's largest car-free urban area — some 9,000 alleys where donkeys still haul goods past 1,200 years of layered architecture: the Bou Inania and al-Attarine madrasas' carved cedar and zellij, the Chouara tannery's stone dye vats working as they have for centuries, funduqs restored to craft centres, and the green-tiled rooftops of al-Qarawiyyin at the heart of it all. UNESCO listed the medina in 1981. Where Marrakech performs, Fes preserves. This is Morocco's capital of craft, of sacred music (the annual Fes Festival of World Sacred Music), and of religious scholarship. Come with good shoes, a licensed guide for day one, and patience — Fes reveals itself slowly, and rewards every hour you give it.