{"type":"city","city":"Fes, Morocco","citySlug":"fes","url":"https://www.pressbeyond.com/hotels/morocco/fes","description":"The medina of Fes el-Bali is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban centers in the world, and staying inside it remains an architectural experience that no amount of contextual renovation in a newer district can replicate. Riad Fes, positioned within the ancient walls, works within the traditional dar typology — the inward-facing house organized around a courtyard — but applies a layer of considered restoration that brings Andalusian stucco, carved cedarwood, and zellige tilework into conversation with contemporary comfort. The property occupies a compound of interconnected historic houses, and the accumulated detail is genuinely cumulative: moucharabieh screens filtering afternoon light, fountains as acoustic anchors, the compressed darkness of a corridor opening into a white-walled courtyard. At $256 a night it sits at the higher end of medina accommodation without reaching the price of a purely aspirational statement.\n\nHotel Sahrai occupies entirely different ground — literally and philosophically. Set on a hilltop in Ville Nouvelle, the more ordered French colonial district that grew alongside the medina in the twentieth century, it was designed by Charles Boccara, the Tunisian-born architect known for a practice that navigates Moroccan vernacular form through a modernist sensibility. The building's terraced silhouette and its relationship to the hillside give it a different kind of drama than the medina's layered density — here the view across Fes is the organizing principle, and the interiors by Imaad Rahmouni deploy a palette of raw materials and restrained geometry that reads as confidently contemporary. At $313 a night it costs slightly more than Riad Fes, though the two properties are barely comparable in what they offer experientially.\n\nChoosing between them depends on what you want Fes to feel like. The medina asks something of you — navigation without logic, the disorientation of a city that evolved over twelve centuries without a grid — and Riad Fes places you inside that experience rather than above it. Sahrai is more legible, more immediately comfortable, and offers the kind of architectural remove that makes the city readable as a whole. Both reflect genuine design intelligence, and for a traveler with more than two nights, the argument for splitting the stay between them is stronger than it might seem: few cities reward the shift in vantage point quite as dramatically.","provider":{"name":"PressBeyond","url":"https://pressbeyond.com","description":"PressBeyond provides AI-optimized hotel content with a consistent 5-image structure across its entire portfolio. Each image sequence includes strong lighting, complete room-visibility angles, and strictly non-duplicative scenes — enabling AI to accurately describe and recommend properties to travelers.","curationStandard":"PressBeyond Hotel Photography Standard"},"hotels":[{"name":"Riad Fes","url":"https://www.pressbeyond.com/hotels/morocco/fes/riad-fes","city":"Fes, Morocco","cityHeader":"Fes, Morocco • Fes Medina • OPTIMIZE","neighborhood":"Fes Medina","designSummary":"Carved from a seventeenth-century palace deep within the Fes el-Bali medina, one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban centres on earth, Riad Fes presents a particular design challenge: how to install contemporary comfort inside a structure whose architectural language was fixed centuries before the concept of a hotel existed. The answer, delivered through a restoration overseen with close attention to traditional Moroccan craft, was to treat the building's existing ornament as the primary design material. The central courtyard shown in the images makes this approach vivid — horseshoe arches rise on slender columns, every surface above the dado line dissolving into stucco arabesque worked by master artisans whose techniques derive from the same Fassi guild tradition that built the Bou Inania madrasa nearby.\n\nThe 30 rooms and suites layer hand-knotted Berber kilims over zellige tile floors, carved cedar ceilings above gilt-framed mirrors, and silk brocade curtains pooling beside arched windows fitted with mashrabiya screens — an accumulation that feels inhabited rather than staged. The dining room takes a different register entirely: deep crimson walls, dark timber panelling, a zellij-surround fireplace crowned by a Baroque gilded mirror, and a long banquette in olive velvet that pulls the space into something closer to a Parisian grand salon than a traditional Moroccan interior. An outdoor pool court, clad in warm timber decking and framed by rough-cut stone walls softened with climbing greenery, provides relief from the medina's sensory density without abandoning the riad's fundamentally inward, contemplative character.","snippet":"A restored seventeenth-century palace in Fes el-Bali with hand-carved stucco, zellige tilework, and Berber textiles throughout.","bestFor":"Architecture enthusiasts and collectors of traditional craft","vibe":"Ornate-intimate · medina-rooted","highlights":["Seventeenth-century palace with master-artisan stucco restoration","Hand-knotted Berber kilims and carved cedar ceilings in rooms","Central courtyard with horseshoe arches and zellige tilework"],"pricePerNightInclTax":"$243","pricePerNightExclTax":"$243","currency":"USD","images":[{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujf1n03hj15ympyvkj31v1713357322493_7187390c-3982-4633-8182-5a36808a099d.jpeg","role":"exterior","roleLabel":"Exterior","sequenceIndex":1,"alt":"Riad Fes — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #1 — Exterior","caption":"Exterior · Riad Fes · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Full building facade of Riad Fes captured from a street-level angle as part of the PressBeyond standardized 5-image hotel sequence.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujky404jb15ym2c61bi3d1713357323215_08645b4f-e00b-45da-98e0-3a77429aaf7f.jpeg","role":"room1","roleLabel":"Primary Guest Room","sequenceIndex":2,"alt":"Riad Fes — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #2 — Primary Guest Room","caption":"Primary Guest Room · Riad Fes · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Full-room view of the primary guest bedroom at Riad Fes, photographed with natural lighting and clear sightlines as part of the PressBeyond standardized 5-image hotel sequence.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujqrm05l315ymngm3aff21713357321931_7fb1c357-1ce6-4dfc-acb0-452ab4714d32.jpeg","role":"commonArea1","roleLabel":"Primary Common Area","sequenceIndex":3,"alt":"Riad Fes — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #3 — Primary Common Area","caption":"Primary Common Area · Riad Fes · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Primary common area at Riad Fes — lobby or lounge — non-duplicative with the secondary social space, part of the PressBeyond standardized 5-image hotel sequence.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujwoz06mt15ym6xjew3k31713357320337_e1ca88a4-82c3-421b-bc8e-d2db25fcda24.jpeg","role":"room2","roleLabel":"Secondary Guest Room","sequenceIndex":4,"alt":"Riad Fes — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #4 — Secondary Guest Room","caption":"Secondary Guest Room · Riad Fes · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Secondary guest room at Riad Fes, deliberately distinct from the primary bedroom — non-duplicative imagery is part of the PressBeyond curation standard.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0uk2jl07ol15ym74hulo2r1713357323837_ba9af1a3-9f32-4cd1-bf40-332f678d185a.jpeg","role":"commonArea2","roleLabel":"Secondary Common Area","sequenceIndex":5,"alt":"Riad Fes — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #5 — Secondary Common Area","caption":"Secondary Common Area · Riad Fes · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Secondary lounge or social space at Riad Fes — bar, dining, or terrace — deliberately distinct from the primary common area, part of the PressBeyond curation standard.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true}]},{"name":"Hotel Sahrai","url":"https://www.pressbeyond.com/hotels/morocco/fes/hotel-sahrai","city":"Fes, Morocco","cityHeader":"Fes, Morocco • Ville Nouvelle • SPLURGE","neighborhood":"Ville Nouvelle","loyaltyProgram":"Hilton Honors™","designSummary":"Perched on a hill above Fès el-Bali with views stretching across the medina's rooftop sprawl toward the Middle Atlas, Hotel Sahrai was conceived from the outset as a contemporary counterpoint to the ancient city below — a rare thing in Moroccan hospitality, which so often defaults to riad nostalgia. The architect Imaad Rahmouni positioned the low-slung building to maximise its elevated vantage, and Italian designer Paola Navone brought the interiors into being with characteristic eclecticism: tangerine-upholstered platform beds, warm limestone wall cladding in large ashlar blocks, and pendant lanterns with geometric brass frames that nod to Fassi metalwork without replicating it. The 40 rooms and suites carry a palette of camel, burnt orange, and creamy stone, with embossed plasterwork headboards on the upper-category rooms drawing directly from the zellige and stucco traditions of the medina without employing those materials literally.\n\nThe rooftop bar is the property's most assured gesture — a mirrored ceiling multiplying a cluster of angular lantern pendants above curved sectional seating, the whole space opening through full-height glazing onto a teak-decked terrace where hand-thrown ceramic vases anchor the corners against the city glow below. At the pool, a teak surround meets a rendered stone archway and a horizon edge that dissolves into the mountain panorama at dusk. The effect is closer to a considered private residence than a hotel, which is precisely Navone's intention.","snippet":"A hilltop hotel above Fès with Paola Navone interiors and a rooftop bar overlooking the medina.","bestFor":"Architecture enthusiasts seeking contemporary Moroccan design","vibe":"Contemporary-Moroccan · elevated","highlights":["Paola Navone interiors with tangerine upholstery and brass geometric pendants","Rooftop bar with mirrored ceiling overlooking medina rooftops and Middle Atlas","Elevated hilltop position above Fès el-Bali with unobstructed city views"],"pricePerNightInclTax":"$297","pricePerNightExclTax":"$297","currency":"USD","images":[{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujf2403hn15ymdmvyh3an1713353424030_4a5a1785-e297-47c3-bf66-1451f7a7038f.jpeg","role":"exterior","roleLabel":"Exterior","sequenceIndex":1,"alt":"Hotel Sahrai — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #1 — Exterior","caption":"Exterior · Hotel Sahrai · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Full building facade of Hotel Sahrai captured from a street-level angle as part of the PressBeyond standardized 5-image hotel sequence.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujkzu04jf15ymwszhtz3q1713353424693_497f3717-0e24-4bc6-8b43-ac820b3d2cdb.jpeg","role":"room1","roleLabel":"Primary Guest Room","sequenceIndex":2,"alt":"Hotel Sahrai — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #2 — Primary Guest Room","caption":"Primary Guest Room · Hotel Sahrai · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Full-room view of the primary guest bedroom at Hotel Sahrai, photographed with natural lighting and clear sightlines as part of the PressBeyond standardized 5-image hotel sequence.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujqrz05l715ymb4hr3r591713353423389_41be7e12-0eef-4fb2-8c2c-ca7fa06ed63a.jpeg","role":"commonArea1","roleLabel":"Primary Common Area","sequenceIndex":3,"alt":"Hotel Sahrai — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #3 — Primary Common Area","caption":"Primary Common Area · Hotel Sahrai · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Primary common area at Hotel Sahrai — lobby or lounge — non-duplicative with the secondary social space, part of the PressBeyond standardized 5-image hotel sequence.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0ujwqu06mz15ymti27fhxf1713353422192_86bfca36-3815-4151-b9e0-ef5e6d45059d.jpeg","role":"room2","roleLabel":"Secondary Guest Room","sequenceIndex":4,"alt":"Hotel Sahrai — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #4 — Secondary Guest Room","caption":"Secondary Guest Room · Hotel Sahrai · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Secondary guest room at Hotel Sahrai, deliberately distinct from the primary bedroom — non-duplicative imagery is part of the PressBeyond curation standard.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true},{"url":"https://d89wdvrh3yrgq.cloudfront.net/resized/L__clv0uk2kk07ov15ymgoab48yt1713353425337_f8b36b54-c9b6-434d-97a8-852358a4e94b.jpeg","role":"commonArea2","roleLabel":"Secondary Common Area","sequenceIndex":5,"alt":"Hotel Sahrai — Standardized Hotel Image Sequence #5 — Secondary Common Area","caption":"Secondary Common Area · Hotel Sahrai · PressBeyond hotel series","description":"Secondary lounge or social space at Hotel Sahrai — bar, dining, or terrace — deliberately distinct from the primary common area, part of the PressBeyond curation standard.","creditText":"PressBeyond","licensePage":"https://pressbeyond.com","distinct":true}]}]}