Getting There By Air:Fes - Saiss International Airport (FEZ)
Tel: (212) 3562 4800
or 3562 4799 or 090 000 800 (call center).
Website:
www.onda.org.maFes Airport is located at Saiss, 15km (9 miles), south of the city center. It serves domestic and European destinations and is a hub for
Royal Air Maroc and
British Airways, as well as low cost carriers such as
Ryanair and
Atlas Blue. Fez can be reached
in 45 minutes by plane from Casablanca, in 3 hours from London or Paris, and via overnight service from New York.
Airport facilities: The airport is small, with limited facilities. These include currency exchange, ATMs, shops, a restaurant and cafe, and car hire from major national and local operators including
Avis, Europcar and
Hertz.
Transport to the city: Taxis connect the airport to the city; taxi ranks are outside the terminal building to the left. There is a bus stop not far from the airport (2 to 3 minutes away) and a service into the city runs every hour.
Getting There By Road:There are bus terminals in both the Ville Nouvelle and by the various gates to the Medina, but arrivals from most destinations drop at the main bus station
(gare routière), just north of Bab Mahrouk.
CTM, the national company that runs bus services between towns in Morocco and abroad (tel: 055 732 992; website:
www.ctm.co.ma), drop passengers at their office on the corner of rue Tetouan and avenue Mohammed V in the Ville Nouvelle.
Going by car to Fes means a long drive across Europe to Algeciras, from where frequent ferries depart for Tangier or Ceuta.
Parking is widely available throughout the Ville Nouvelle. If you stay in car-less Fes el-Bali you can leave your vehicle in the small car park south of Bab Boujeloud, just a few minutes walk from the old Medina and some of its hotels.
Emergency breakdown services:
There is no general breakdown service - hire cars should have emergency breakdown details on board. For highway emergency services tel: 177. If you are involved in a road accident, wait for the police to arrive.
Getting There By Rail:From London take the Eurostar to Paris, catch the TGV to Algeciras, in Spain, changing at Irun on the Spanish border. This is run by the French
SNCF but tickets may be purchased from
European Rail Ltd (tel: 020 7387 0444; website:
www.europeanrail.com) and
Rail Europe (tel: 0870 584 8848; website:
www.raileurope.co.uk). Ferry services to Tangier and Ceuta (the Spanish enclave in Morocco) leave from Algeciras.
Southern Ferries (tel: 020 7491 4968; website:
www.southernferries.co.uk) has prices and timetables.
Office National des Chemins de Fer (ONCF) (tel: 3777 4747; website:
www.oncf.ma) is Morocco’s national railway operator. Fast trains shuttles (TNR) and air-conditioned express trains connect the main cities in the north-western part of the country: Fes, Meknes, Tangier, Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech.
There are no trains east of the Atlas mountains and south of Marrakech. To cover some of these regions, the ONCF has its own bus company,
Supratours (tel: 3777 6520) whose schedules are integrated into the train timetable so that buses connect smoothly to intercity trains. Tickets for combined train and bus journeys are sold in one package, known as ‘Rail & Route’.
Fes railway station is in the Ville Nouvelle, rue Imarate Arabia (tel: 055 930 333).A tunnel between Spain and Morocco and a high-speed rail link is a project that has been under discussion for years but has never progressed beyond the drawing board and pledges of intent from Rabat and Madrid.
Getting Around:Public TransportLocal
buses, which tend to be crowded but run regularly, connect the Ville Nouvelle with various parts of the old city. Route numbers are marked on the side of the buses. Some useful ones include bus 9 (place Atlas in Ville nouvelle to near the Dar Batha Museum); bus 12 (BabBoujeloud to Bab Ftouh, the Medina’s southeast gate, Fes el-Bali); bus 19 (railway station to Place er-Rsif, central Fes el-Bali).
The only practical way of getting around the medina is on foot. (You can get taxis from all the gates of the Medina.)
TaxisThere are two types of taxis: the small, red
petits taxis operate within the city limits, tend to be metered and are inexpensive, only carrying three passengers.
Grands taxis are bigger and travel fixed routes from Fes to outlying areas mostly from the main bus station
(gare routière). Both types of taxis are often shared and drivers may wait until the taxi is full before departing. You can ask to have a petit taxi to yourself.
Car HireFes has many car rental companies, including
Avis (tel: 055 626 969; website:
www.avis.ma),
Budget (tel: 055 940 092; website:
www.budget.com),
Europcar (tel: 055 626 545; website:
www.europcar.ma) and
Hertz (tel: 055 622 812; website:
www.hertz.com).
Bicycle HireBicycle hire is not available in Fes. Fes el-Bali is a pedestrian and donkey/mule only zone, and therefore unsuitable for cycles.
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The Columbus World Travel Guide has been published for 26 years and is sold in over 90 countries worldwide.
Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
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