Fes is Morocco's spiritual and intellectual heart in a way Marrakech, for all its energy, isn't quite — this is the country's oldest imperial city, home to one of the world's oldest universities, and its medina (Fes el-Bali) is widely considered the best-preserved medieval Arab city anywhere. Unlike Marrakech's more tourism-oriented souks, Fes still functions largely as it always has: leather tanned in the same vats for centuries, brass worked by hand in tiny workshops, and a medina so labyrinthine that even residents occasionally need directions.