Walk two minutes south of Bab Bou Jeloud, past the café terraces of Place de l'Istiqlal, and a tall studded door opens into something quieter than anything else this close to the medina: a 19th-century palace courtyard with a long Andalusian garden. This is Dar Batha — the residence Sultan Hassan I commissioned in the 1880s and his son Abdelaziz finished — converted in 1915 into Morocco's first museum.

After a six-year, 15.6-million-dirham renovation, it reopened on 26 February 2025 as the Al Batha Museum of Islamic Arts. The collection runs to over 6,500 objects across galleries arranged around the central courtyard: ceramics (the famous cobalt 'Fez Blue'), Marinid stucco and woodwork salvaged from crumbling madrasas, Berber carpets, manuscripts and astrolabes. The signature pieces — the blue-glazed Fassi vessels developed by potters here from the tenth century onward — are still the reference set.

The Andalusian garden, designed in 1915 by French landscape architect Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, runs over more than half the palace footprint. Palms, jacaranda, citrus trees and a central fountain. Opening hours are 10:00 to 18:00, closed Tuesdays; entry is around 60 MAD. Worth pairing with Bou Inania Madrasa, five minutes back into the medina.