A woman walks down a gaily painted alley in the ancient walled city in Fez. (Bob Drogin/Los Angeles Times/TNS) (Bob Drogin / TNS)
Two men wash and dye camel, goat, sheep and cow hides in the Chouara, the 11th century tanners’ quarter. Pigments are from plants and minerals. (Bob Drogin / TNS)
A stick of incense burns from one of the sumptuously decorated stucco walls at Bou Inania Medersa, a residential religious school built in the 14th century, in the old walled city of Fez. (Bob Drogin / TNS)
A man hawks dates and other dried fruits in one of the thousands of stalls in the souks of the ancient walled city in Fez. (Bob Drogin / TNS)
A stall specializes in selling colorful slippers called babouches in the ancient walled city in Fez. (Bob Drogin/Los Angeles Times/TNS) (Bob Drogin / TNS)
The sitting area in a two-room suite at Dar Saffarine, a restored 600-year-old residence that now operates as a guesthouse in the old walled city in Fez. (Bob Drogin / TNS)
A man in a djellaba, a long, loose-fitting robe, ducks under one of the many archways in the ancient walled city of Fez. (Bob Drogin / Photos by Bob Drogin /Los Angeles Times)
The medina was an impoverished and forbidding place then, and their dar was only the third guest house in it. There are about 200 today, thanks to a boom in tourism. Camel caravans once crossed the desert to bring sugar, salt and gold to Fez from Timbuktu and beyond. Now, Chinese tour groups arrive by bus.