Guides

A half-day tour from an official guide is a useful introduction to Fes El Bali; the fee is 120dh for a half-day, no matter how many people are in your group. Official guides can identify themselves by round gold medallions and can be engaged at the Syndicat d'Initiative on the east side of Place Mohammed V, or outside the more upmarket hotels, or at the youth hostel.

Guides who tout their services are likely to be unofficial and technically illegal. This doesn't necessarily mean they're to be avoided - some who are genuine students (as most claim to be) can be excellent. But you have to choose carefully, ideally drinking a tea together before settling a rate or declaring interest. An unpleasant trick, employed by the more disreputable, is to take you into Fes El Bali and, once you're disorientated, maybe with dusk descending, demand rather more than the agreed fee to take you back to your hotel. Don't allow yourself to be intimidated - passers-by will be happy to direct you back to your hotel.

Whether you get an official or unofficial guide, it's essential to work out in advance the main points you want to see . At all events, make it clear that you're not

interested in shopping (unless that's all you want to do). Remember if you enter a shop with a guide, official or otherwise, that they will take a commission from the shopkeeper on anything that you buy, which will be added to the price you pay (except in the case of new carpets with a price fixed by the state, in which case it will come out of the shopkeeper's profit); official guides are worse in this respect since they can command a much higher commission, often as much forty percent.

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