28 May 2022
If you have enough time in Fez and don't know what to do, make sure to book this day trip!
The last-minute booking and also the communication via Whatsapp with Saad (guide) worked excellently.
We were picked up from our riad by Saad and our driver (Halid) in the morning around 9am and after picking up other tourists, the tour started. There were only 4 of us in total - a small group was definitely an advantage.
During the journey, our driver tried to give us some information about the area and also stopped us a few times at interesting places to take photos.
The only small problem was that our driver only spoke French and therefore communication was a bit difficult. My friend knew some French, which then helped us a lot during this tour! The other tourists didn't know French either! This was the only negative point about this tour!
Our first stop was the archaeological site "Volubilis". Here we had one hour to look at the best preserved monuments from Roman antiquity. You pay an entrance fee and you can also ask for a guide (there are some waiting at the entrance), but we didn't do that.
Then we went to the city " Moulay Idriss". A very small and interesting city on a hill. Here we had half an hour to look at it. Again, our driver offered to organise a guide if desired.
As in Fez, you are unfortunately also confronted by young male people and when you try to get further with GPS in small streets, you are stopped with the information "there are only houses here, at the end there's nothing", although this is not true!
One of the other tourists was a lady who also wanted to explore the city on her own. Unfortunately, her bag was stolen in the meantime. Our driver told us that generally women should not walk alone through the cities in Marocco and that a guide is definitely recommended for women travelling alone!
After his recommendation, we actually took a guide in the city of Meknes (our driver organised it while we were eating) and all the tourists explored the city together. The guide charged 300 dirhams (about 30 euros) - was a fair price for 4 people and a two-hour tour.
When you walk through the medina with a guide, you are generally not bothered by sellers and it is very pleasant to walk around. We learned a lot about the city thanks to our guide and also saw a lot of what the city has to offer. I can definitely recommend a guide here!
We were back in Fez around 6-7pm. Our driver offered us to stop at a high viewpoint in Fez to take a photo of the whole of Fez - that was also very nice and the view was very beautiful.
All in all, this is definitely a must-do tour if you are in Fez and still have enough time!