Fes is divided in three parts, the Medina (Fes al Bali, the old city, dating from ~800 AD making it the oldest Arab medieval city in the world), Fes Jdid (new Fes, founded ~1300 AD) and la ville nouvelle (french created). I have spent 100% of my time in the Medina, so that's what I'll talk about.
The Medina is crazy. The way I'd describe it is this: If you think of the movie Aladdin as a caricature of Arab life, clearly you've never been to Fes al Bali. It's really wild. There are no cars because the streets are too narrow (technically there are cars in the peripheries). People do ride motorcycles (more like mopeds) at scarily fast speeds (like... not that fast, but when you're always walking in basically a 4-foot wide alley that bends and turns and a moped is driving at you at 20mph it seems really fast). It's common to see people with mules carrying their goods to the market (which seems like it takes up about 80% of the city...)
The Medina is crazy. The way I'd describe it is this: If you think of the movie Aladdin as a caricature of Arab life, clearly you've never been to Fes al Bali. It's really wild. There are no cars because the streets are too narrow (technically there are cars in the peripheries). People do ride motorcycles (more like mopeds) at scarily fast speeds (like... not that fast, but when you're always walking in basically a 4-foot wide alley that bends and turns and a moped is driving at you at 20mph it seems really fast). It's common to see people with mules carrying their goods to the market (which seems like it takes up about 80% of the city...)
Those are some pictures of the Medina. It looks kind of dead, or at least I thought it did. There just doesn't necessarily seem to be a lot going on. But I will try to disabuse you of that notion by showing you a few pictures.
Those are pictures of the souk (market). But it gives you an idea of what walking around the city is like; it's all hidden from up above because it's these tiny little streets with a million people walking. That being said the souk has a wildly different feel to it than the rest of the city. I'll talk more about that some other time.
I like your descriptions of the Medina, and your photos help a lot in getting an idea of what you are writing about. This is really good! Are you going to visit the other two, more modern, parts of Fes?
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