Just off Place Seffarine — the brassworkers' square, one of the most atmospheric corners of the medina — the Hammam Seffarine is believed to be among the oldest functioning bathhouses in Fez, its origins likely in the Merinid period. Hammams are a daily necessity in a neighbourhood where most homes have no private bathing facilities, and they run separate sessions for men and women throughout the day.
For travellers, a hammam visit is one of the most honest ways to spend an hour in the medina — you pay a small entry fee, hand your clothes to an attendant, scrub with a kessa mitt and black soap, and bake yourself in progressively hotter steam rooms alongside local men. It is a social institution more than a spa. Soap and towel can usually be hired at the door; kessa mitts are cheap in any nearby souk.