A red city of souks and snake charmers, a film set kasbah, a camel into the great dunes, and the oldest medina on earth, Morocco, all colour, spice and the call to prayer.
Into Marrakech, the Red City beneath the snow capped Atlas. After the flight we keep it easy, a riad hidden in the medina, a first tagine on a rooftop, and the Jemaa el Fnaa square coming alive at dusk with smoke, drums and lanterns.
The Koutoubia minaret, the carved cedar and zellij of the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs, and the labyrinth of the souks, leather, brass, spice and carpets. The cobalt blue Majorelle Garden and the YSL museum, mint tea, a hammam to steam off the dust.
A day to the Ourika valley and a Berber village in the Atlas foothills, walnut groves and waterfalls and mint tea in a mountain home, or the lunar Agafay desert for a sunset camel ride and dinner under the stars. (overnight Marrakech)
Over the High Atlas by the dramatic Tizi n'Tichka pass to Ait Benhaddou, the ochre fortified ksar that has starred in a hundred films, and the gorges of Dades or Todra, their red walls soaring. Toward the edge of the Sahara as the light turns gold.
The towering dunes of Erg Chebbi at Merzouga, glowing apricot and rose. A camel trek into the sand at golden hour, a luxury desert camp among the dunes, Berber drumming around the fire, and a sky so thick with stars it casts a shadow.
Sunrise over the dunes, then the long, beautiful drive north, through the cedar forests of the Middle Atlas (and its Barbary apes), the Berber towns of Midelt and the Swiss like Ifrane, to the imperial city of Fes, arriving as the muezzins call across the medina at dusk.
The medina of Fes el Bali, the largest car free urban area on earth and a place that has barely changed in a thousand years, the dyers' tanneries seen from a leather shop roof, the Al Qarawiyyin (the oldest university in the world), the dazzling tilework of the medersas. Getting wonderfully lost.
The artisan quarters, the brass beaters, the potters firing blue Fassi ceramics, the weavers and the mosaic cutters, the old Jewish mellah, and a rooftop sunset over the whole green and white sweep of the medina. A last Moroccan feast. (overnight Fes)
A last mint tea before your flight from Fes. Morocco is a feast for every sense at once, the colour, the spice, the noise, the kindness, and it leaves you a little intoxicated, and already plotting a return through the blue town of Chefchaouen.
Three ways to do the same route: Comfort, Premium or Luxe. Breakfasts in. Mix tiers city by city if you like, it is your trip.
Priced to your dates, your hotel tier and how the two of you like to travel. Ask, the first answer usually lands within minutes.
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