Of the seven historic gates piercing Tétouan's Almohad-era ramparts, Bab el-Oqla (sometimes spelled Bab Okla) is the one first-time visitors should walk through. The eastern gate sits at the cluster of sights most travellers come to Tétouan for: just inside the horseshoe arch are the Ethnographic Museum and a short walk to the tanneries; directly across the road outside is Dar Sanaa's artisan school. The road outside continues toward Jebel Dersa and the Martil coast.

The gate itself is set into the eastern ramparts, a horseshoe-arched stone portal of the kind the Almohads put around all their walled cities. Inside, the medina opens immediately onto its main east-west axis: the Ethnographic Museum sits on the left in a 19th-century Spanish-era bastion, the tanneries are five minutes' walk through the leather lanes, and the copper souk runs north toward the old kasbah. The cross-section from Bab el-Oqla west to Place Hassan II and Bab er-Rouah covers the medina's main spine in about twenty-five minutes of slow walking.

Mid-morning is the practical visit window — between 9:30 and 11:30 the museums are open, the craft workshops are at full activity, and the light still falls on the outer ramparts. Avoid Fridays between roughly 12 and 2 pm when many medina workshops close for prayer. There is street parking along the road outside the gate plus a paid lot 200 m east; on Fridays and market days arrive before 10am because spaces fill quickly with visitors to the museum. The medina inside the gate is car-free.