Sefrou & Bhalil from Fez — Guided Excursion

Half an hour south of Fez the tourist traffic disappears. Sefrou is a small walled town with a medina that was once a third Jewish, and a mellah still standing by the river, and it holds the cherry festival every June that gives it its nickname. Bhalil, just up the road, is a village of pale houses where families still live in troglodyte rooms cut into the hillside behind their front doors.

This is the gentlest day on the list, and the most ordinary in the best sense. You walk the Sefrou souk on a market morning among people shopping for themselves rather than for visitors, see the mellah and the old synagogue quarter, and visit the waterfall just outside town when there is water in it. In Bhalil you are usually invited into a cave house for tea by the family who lives there, and you will see the women making djellaba buttons by hand on their doorsteps.

It works well as a half day, or a full day with lunch and more walking. It is also the best option if someone in the group has had enough of big cities.