The world's largest carless medina — tagine, bastilla, the oldest university on Earth, and tanneries unchanged since the 11th century
Fez (Fès) is the spiritual and cultural capital of Morocco — founded in 789 CE, it contains Fez el-Bali, the largest carless urban area in the world, with 9,400 alleys and lanes too narrow for vehicles, a labyrinth of 13,000 monuments, 100,000 residents, and the world's oldest continuously operating university (Al-Qarawiyyin, 859 CE). Moroccan food in Fez: bastilla (a Moorish pastry pie of pigeon or chicken with almonds, eggs, and cinnamon in a dusting of powdered sugar and cinnamon — sweet, savory, flaky, irreducible); tagine of kefta and egg in a clay pot over a charcoal brazier; pastilla a…
Fez was founded in 789 CE by Idris I — the great-great-great-grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and founder of the Idrisid dynasty — and expanded by Idris II in 808–809 CE, who invited refugees from Andalusia (Muslim and Jewish communities expelled from Córdoba) and from Kairouan in Tunisia to settle the city. This origin gave Fez its character as a meeting point of Andalusian, Berber, and Arab-Islamic traditions — the city's architecture, cuisine, and music all carry traces of al-Andalus that disappeared from Spain in 1492. The Marinid dynasty (1244–1465) made Fez the greatest center of Islami…