Marrakesh + Fes: two medinas you can genuinely get lost in
Morocco is visa-free for a Russian passport, and two imperial cities give you everything at once: markets, riads, a desert within reach and a maze where the navigator gives up.
How they differ
Marrakesh is the red city: touristy, loud and adapted — people there understand why you came and know how to sell it. Fes is older, sterner and more real: its medina is considered the largest car-free urban area in the world, vehicles physically cannot enter, and goods move on donkeys. In Marrakesh you are a guest; in Fes you are an outsider, and that is more interesting.
Marrakesh: four days
Jemaa el-Fnaa in the evening: snake charmers, food stalls, smoke, drums — watch it from a café roof, then come down and eat. The Ben Youssef madrasa with carved cedar and plaster. The Majorelle garden, saved by Yves Saint Laurent, and the museum beside it. The Bahia palace. Outside the city, the Atlas: the Ourika valley for half a day, the Ouzoud waterfalls for a whole one, and with three days, the Merzouga desert with a night in tents between the dunes.
Fes: three days
The Fes el-Bali medina has nine thousand streets, and that is not an exaggeration. Navigate by the madrasas of Attarine and Bou Inania and the Karaouine mosque, whose university was founded in the ninth century. The signature sight is the Chouara tanneries: hundreds of stone vats of dye seen from the terraces of the surrounding shops, where you are let up for a purchase or a tip, and given a sprig of mint at the door for the smell. Outside the city lie Volubilis, with Roman mosaics under open sky, and Meknes.
Getting around
Trains run between Marrakesh and Fes — about seven hours with a change in Casablanca; there are also direct night buses. The railway inside the country works well and costs little, and it is the most convenient way. The route builds neatly as a loop: fly into Marrakesh and out of Fes or the reverse, as both take international flights.
When to go
March–May and September–November. In summer Marrakesh reaches forty and Fes is hotter still — walking the medina in that weather is impossible. In winter it is around twenty by day and cold at night, and riads often have no heating, which is felt more sharply than you expect.
How not to get lost in the medina
In Fes the navigator works poorly: the satellite does not reach through the narrow lanes and the maps do not match the passages. What does work: navigate by the large gates (Bab Boujloud, Bab Guissa), go downhill if you need the river, and ask shopkeepers rather than whoever approached you. Hotels usually give a card with directions — take it. And arrange to be met at the gate on your first day, or the search for your riad with a suitcase becomes the trip's first ordeal.
The desert from Marrakesh
The classic Sahara route takes three days: over the Tizi n'Tichka pass with a stop at Ait Ben Haddou, a night in the Dades gorge, a second day through the Todra valley to the Merzouga dunes with a night in a camp among the sand, and back on the third. The drive is long and tiring, but there is no other way to reach the real dunes of Erg Chebbi. The shorter alternative is Zagora, where the dunes are smaller. The camel ride at sunset and a night under open sky are what it is all for.
Practical matters
No visa, up to 90 days. Stay in a riad — a traditional house with an inner courtyard, right inside the medina: a blank wall outside, an orange tree and silence within. Bargaining in the souk is expected and starts at about a third of the asking price. «Guides» who offer to show you the way do not do it for free — agree the terms in advance or decline at once.
Moscow → Marrakesh → Fes
Route and nights go into the form — adjust the date and passengers.