🇫🇷 Paris Orly → 🇲🇦 Fez · 1 week

Reach the Chouara Tanneries terrace by 9–10am when the dye pots are freshest and the light is best — the terrace is accessed through the leather shops above (free if you're with a guide, shops give you mint to hold against the smell). The circular dye pots seen from above, filled with saffron yellow, poppy red, and cobalt blue, are genuinely one of the great visual spectacles of North Africa.

Visit the Bou Inania Madrasa early morning (8–9am) before tour groups arrive — this 14th-century Quranic school has the finest zellige tilework, carved cedarwood, and stucco decoration in Morocco. It's still a working religious school so dress respectfully; entry is around 20 MAD.

Eat lunch at a local restaurant inside the medina rather than at tourist-facing places on the main drag — R'hamna Restaurant near Rcif Square is cheap, has no English menu, and serves market-fresh harira soup and lamb tagine to medina workers. A full lunch with bread costs under 50 MAD.

Walk to the Marinid Tombs on the hilltop above the medina just before sunset — the ruins themselves are unremarkable but the panoramic view over the entire Fes el-Bali from above is extraordinary, especially in the warm late light when the green-tiled mosque rooftops glow. It's completely free and rarely crowded.