The medina is a machine for surviving the Sahara’s edge: lanes two meters wide between three-story pisé walls, souks roofed with slatted reeds that strobe the light, and courtyards that vent heat upward at night. Walking it at 110°F is genuinely possible — which cannot be said of the French-built new city a kilometer west.
These picks run the covered souk spine and the quieter derbs of the Kasbah and Mouassine quarters. The reed-roof light in the souks between 11 and 2 is one of the great walking experiences anywhere.