A Travel Photography Reflection from Morocco

Most guidebooks will tell you that Fes is chaotic, especially during the day—and it’s true. The Fes Medina, one of the largest and oldest pedestrian-only urban zones in the world, pulses with life: over 9,000 tangled alleyways alive with voices, spices, smoke, and centuries of trade.

But when I visited during Ramadan in early March, with cold rain falling on the ancient stones, I experienced something else—something quieter. Something sacred.

Sacred Stillness in the Medina

By day, vendors stood silently behind their stalls piled high with olives, saffron, camel meat, and seafood, but they weren’t eating. It was Ramadan. And despite the hunger and fasting, there was no restlessness. Just a deep stillness, a kind of collective breath held in reverence.

Shops were closed. Lanterns hung above shuttered doors. And yet the medina wasn’t asleep. It was humming with something ancient—a presence held in the bones of the walls and echoed in the call to prayer. As a photographer, I wasn’t just observing the city; I was absorbing it. The textures. The silence. The discipline. The rain made it all glisten.

The Mellah: Memory in Stone

We wandered into the Jewish Quarter—the Mellah, a historic district that holds the memory of a vanished population. No Jewish families live there anymore, but every Moroccan city still holds space for its Jewish past. In the Mellah, I felt unexpectedly connected—not as a tourist, but as someone with roots in many places, woven through language, exile, and memory.

This was more than sightseeing. It was something ancestral. Something lived.

What Fes Offers

Fes doesn’t offer itself up easily. It’s not a city that tries to impress you. It asks you to slow down, get lost, forget what you were looking for—and maybe, find something unexpected in return.

As a travel photographer, this is the kind of moment I live for: the in-between space where beauty, history, and mystery collide.