4 Best Shopping in Fez and the Middle Atlas, Morocco

The government-run Ensemble Artisanal is, as always in Moroccan cities, a good place to watch craftspeople at work and check for fixed-price, quality handcrafted products and prices before haggling in the souks.

At this family-run workshop, Ezzouak Abdelhak specializes in the fast-disappearing art of damascening (meticulously inlaying a thread of gold, silver, or copper onto a metal surface), creating exquisite decorative objects and jewelry.

A specialist in the disappearing art of damascening (inlaying a thread of gold, silver, or copper on a metal surface), the Palais sells jewelry and decorative vases and dishes.

A tour through this gastronomic oasis stuffed with all manner of products heaped in elaborately arranged cones and pyramids—prunes, olives, spices, nuts, dates, and sugary pastries in every conceivable shape and color—is a veritable feast for the senses. Meknès is famed for its olives, and the variety on display and the painstaking care with which each pyramid of produce has been set out is nearly as geometrically enthralling as the decorative designs on the Bab Mansour. The food souks and kissaria (covered market) run along one side of the medina square.  The kissaria is a good place to stock up on Moroccan spices and aromatic herbs.