The short answer
Two full days is the minimum to see the medina's essentials with a guide: the tanneries, the madrasas, the souks and the craft quarters. Three days lets you add Meknes and Volubilis and slow down in the medina. Four days makes room for Chefchaouen or the Azrou cedar forest. Pairing Fes with Marrakech usually needs a week or more.
In more detail
Fes el-Bali is not a place to rush. Its lanes are mostly unnamed and phone navigation often fails in the densest quarters, so progress is slower than in Marrakech. A guided first day gives you the layout: the Chouara tannery seen from the leather-shop terraces, the Bou Inania and Attarine madrasas, the coppersmiths of Place Seffarine and the dyers' souk.
A second day can be your own. Walk back to the places you liked, visit the mellah and the Ibn Danan synagogue, or climb to the Merenid Tombs or the Borj Nord for the view over the medina at sunset.
Meknes is about an hour away and Volubilis sits about 33 km north of it, so the two make a natural day out. Chefchaouen is about 3h30 by road, which is why it deserves its own overnight rather than a day trip.
Good to know
- Visit the Chouara tannery before 10am, when the work is at its busiest.
- Non-Muslims cannot enter al-Qarawiyyin, but the doorway is worth seeing.
- Pick a riad that can arrange a trusted licensed guide.