This week’s travel dream: Getting lost in Fez

On the labyrinthine streets of ancient Fez, “smells serve as signposts,”said Melena Ryzik in The New York Times. Inside the city’s 540-acre walled medina, which was laid out in about the year 800, narrow, twisting cobblestone streets can disorient a newcomer quickly. Before we learned that our noses could sometimes lead the way, we ignored the advice of all our friends and guidebooks when we passed by all the young men and teenagers who stood around the entrance gates offering to be hired as guides. Fortunately, wandering alone in the heart of Morocco’s third-largest city “is not only possible, it’s also vastly rewarding.” Largely by trusting in Fassi hospitality, we became adepts in just a few days, and made “instant connections” with so many locals that getting lost was well worth the trouble.

Our noses proved best at leading us to the medina’s two open-air leather tanneries, both founded in the Middle Ages. Hides are transformed into supple leather by soaking in open vats that contain animal urine and dung, and if you want to see the vats in use, “you can sniff them out from far, far away.” Many tourists pay to look down upon the work from surrounding terraces, but we became leather detectives: By following a man carrying a dozen hides on his shoulder, we wandered upon an open-air market where a leather broker offered to usher us inside a tannery. Afterward, we retreated to a quiet café, “which smelled (thankfully) of fresh herbs and juices.”

“Generosity was easy to find.” Food vendors eagerly shared tastes of their offerings, and one elderly craftsman in an orange djellaba invited us to join his family at home for lunch. Over spiced lamb and pita—“easily the best food we had in Fez”—he told us that the combs and spoons he carved were made of cow horn and that he held each comb with his foot as he carved the tines. Only later did we see a placard that said his street was once filled with horn-carvers. We bought a few items and said our goodbyes. The craftsman was still waving as we wandered again into the medina’s “tangled, tempting” alleyways.

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At Dar Finn (darfinn.com), a hotel in the medina, doubles start at $104.