Why do medina streets feel narrower than the map suggests?

The alley measures three meters across. You'd swear it was one.

It's not your imagination. Medina streets are designed to feel narrow. The buildings lean inward at upper floors — a technique that maximizes shade at street level while gaining living space above. Covered passages called sabats bridge the gap entirely, turning streets into tunnels. The ratio of wall height to street width creates a canyon. Your peripheral vision fills with stone, not sky.

Then subtract the street itself. A three-meter passage is also a workshop, a display shelf, a parking spot for three motorcycles, a place where two men drink tea on plastic chairs. The navigable channel — the space actually available to your body — is whatever's left. Some days that's a meter. Some days less.

Maps can't show this. A map renders the street as a line of consistent width. It doesn't know about the cart parked halfway across, the shopkeeper's rug display spilling into the path, or the donkey that has decided this is where it stops. The map shows the container. You experience what's left after everything else claims its share.

European cities feel wider because they were redesigned for carriages and then cars — the streets were literally widened. Medina streets were designed for pedestrians and pack animals, and they haven't changed in centuries. The dimensions are original. Your expectations are not.