Bukhara or Fes?

Neither city is a beach destination. Bukhara is deep in Central Asia, about as far from the sea as you can get. Fes has the coast about three hours away, too far for an ordinary stay.

In both, swimming means a pool at your accommodation, and the summer heat makes one worth having. Fes has a small advantage here, because some riads fit a plunge pool into the courtyard or onto the roof. The old pools of Bukhara, such as Lyabi-Hauz, are for sitting beside, not for swimming.

Fes is the better city for food. Its Andalusian-influenced cooking gives you pastilla with almonds and cinnamon, tagines with quince or preserved lemon, and long multi-course dinners in riad dining rooms. In the medina you can also start the day with bissara and sfenj from street counters. Bukhara is good in a narrower way: plov at lunchtime from huge iron pots, samsa from the tandoor, shashlik and endless green tea.

In Bukhara the pleasure is mostly in the setting, eating on teahouse platforms or under the mulberry trees by the pools, and the menus change little from one place to the next. Neither city has much international food. Drinking is easier in Bukhara, where some restaurants serve beer and wine, while in Fes alcohol mostly means a hotel or the Ville Nouvelle.

These are two of the great historic Islamic cities, and both are equally worth the trip. The difference is in what you see. Bukhara is a skyline of monuments: the Kalon Minaret and the Poi Kalon ensemble, the Ark fortress, the brick Samanid Mausoleum and Chor Minor, all spread across an open, walkable town.

Fes is more about the life of the medina. Fes el-Bali is a working maze of trades and quarters, where you find the Marinid carving of the Bou Inania and Al-Attarine madrasas, the Chouara tannery and the doors of the Quaraouiyine. In both cities the museums are modest and the buildings and streets are the reason to come.

Both cities go to bed early, and neither is a place for a night out. In Bukhara the evening means tea and dinner around Lyabi-Hauz under the floodlit madrasas, followed by a walk past the lit domes. In Fes the medina empties when the shops close and the night ends on a riad rooftop. The few bars and lounges are out in the Ville Nouvelle, and alcohol is harder to find than in Bukhara.

Fes has much more to offer outdoors. About an hour south, the Middle Atlas rises into cedar forest around Azrou, where Barbary macaques live wild, and then onto limestone plateaux with small lakes. Tazekka National Park adds caves and cork oak. You need a car or a driver for all of it, but it makes good walking country in spring and autumn.

Bukhara stands on flat oasis land, with canals and cotton fields giving way to scrub desert. A camel ride or a night in a yurt camp near the Nurata lakes is a separate overnight trip, not something you do from your hotel.

Fes has more choice close by. Meknes is about 45 minutes away by train, and with a driver you can add the Roman mosaics of Volubilis and the hill town of Moulay Idriss in one long day. Ifrane, Sefrou and the cave houses of Bhalil give you further options to the south.

Bukhara has one outstanding trip, Samarkand and the Registan, a little under two hours away by fast train. Closer to town there are smaller outings: the potters of Gijduvon, the minaret at Vabkent and the tombs of Chor Bakr. Beyond those, Khiva and Shahrisabz each need an overnight stay.

Bukhara is the more comfortable choice with children. Its old town is safe, compact, flat and mostly free of traffic, so pushchairs are manageable, and local families are out together in the evenings. There is little made for children beyond a puppet show or a camel at the summer palace, and summer heat rules out July and August.

Fes asks much more of a family. The lanes are steep and narrow and shared with loaded donkeys, touts are persistent, and the tannery smells strongly. Older children who enjoy watching craftsmen at work can love the place, but with small children a riad with a pool and short outings in the medina are the way to manage it.

Bukhara is far easier to find your way around. Its main sights sit across a flat, largely car-free old town that you can cross in a short walk. For the places further out, such as the summer palace, the Naqshband shrine and the distant railway station, cheap taxis and ride-hailing apps take care of it.

Fes el-Bali is also car-free, but its lanes twist, climb and end in dead ends, and maps only help so much. Many visitors hire a guide for the first day. Red petit taxis connect the medina gates with the Ville Nouvelle and the station, and most day trips beyond Meknes need a driver.

Bukhara's sixteenth-century trading domes are pleasant to browse, but the choice is narrower. The things worth looking for are suzani embroidery, ikat silk, gold-thread caps and the stork-shaped scissors made by local blacksmiths, and sometimes you can watch the craftsman at work in the next room. Many stalls sell the same printed fabrics and souvenirs, though, so finding good old textiles takes time and some searching.

Fes is the stronger city for shopping, because much of Morocco's handwork is made there as well as sold. Whole lanes of the medina belong to a single trade: tannery leather made into bags and babouches, copper and brass around Seffarine square, blue-and-white Fassi pottery, zellige and carved cedar. The main nuisance is guides who lead you to shops that pay them commission, so it is better to wander on your own. Neither city has fashion or design shops worth your time.

Both cities are inexpensive, and day-to-day costs are similar. In Bukhara the money goes furthest in family guesthouses set in old merchant houses, where breakfast is generous. In Fes it is the modest riads in the medina that give good value.

What pushes up the cost of a trip differs. In Fes the expensive parts are private guides and drivers for day trips, grand riads and alcohol. In Bukhara you will rarely need a driver, so the extra spending is mostly a boutique mansion hotel or dinner beside the pools.

Fes has more real music to offer. It has deep roots in Andalusian classical music and Sufi devotional singing, and its Festival of World Sacred Music holds concerts in palace gardens and at old gates. Outside the festival there are occasional Sufi evenings and musicians at riad dinners.

In Bukhara, most of what you will see is staged for visitors, such as folk dance and costume shows in a madrasa courtyard by Lyabi-Hauz, or a puppet show. Shashmaqam singing is mostly heard at weddings, not on a stage you can plan an evening around.

Fes does wellness on a larger scale. Every medina quarter has a public hammam with black soap and a scrub, riads run quieter hammam rooms of their own, and the hot springs of Moulay Yacoub and Sidi Harazem are a short drive away. The medina itself is loud by day, though, so rest depends on a courtyard or roof terrace.

Bukhara has only a few old bathhouses under brick domes near the trading halls, plus some hotel spas. What it has instead is a calm town. Slow afternoons over tea by the pools and empty lanes at dusk make it the more restful place simply to spend time in.