Royal Palace of Fes

The palace's monumental brass doors — burnished to a warm gold — face a broad esplanade that invites quiet contemplation before the scale of it settles in.

The exterior is the spectacle here: seven towering doors set within a facade of hand-cut zellige tilework, carved cedar, and wrought brass, each surface a lesson in the patience Moroccan craft demands. The palace remains a working royal residence, so what you encounter is the threshold itself — and that threshold, it turns out, is more than enough.