National Geographic Traveller (UK)
EPIC JOURNEYS
Whether you hug the coast or set off into the country’s heart to discover ancient, UNESCO-listed wonders, Morocco promises plenty for the intrepid traveller. Here are three routes to inspire your own adventure
THE WORLD HERITAGE SITES
Morocco has nine UNESCO-protected sites, with the Medina of Fez perhaps the most spectacular of the bunch. This complex tangle of streets, founded in the ninth century, is home to what many hold to be the world’s oldest university. Other highlights include Tétouan’s Andalucian-style medina, notable for its number of intact buildings, and Essaouira’s walled city with its battlements and 18th-century grid layout. For a cultural tour, link these historic cities with some of Morocco’s other treasures, including the remarkable Portuguese fortifications of El Jadida; the 17th-century ksar (fortified village) of Aït Benhaddou, home to a community cafe and an artist’s studio; and the imperial city of Meknes. whc.unesco.org
THE ATLANTIC COAST
The first stage of Morocco’s Al Boraq high-speed railway, launched in late 2018, makes city-hopping along the northern Atlantic coast a breeze. Travelling at up to 200mph, the fastest trains in Africa are handy for a threecity tour that combines Tangier, the modern-minded capital Rabat and art deco Casablanca. To include some of the coast’s more bohemian haunts in your trip, continue by car, motorbike, grand taxi (inter-city car share) or bus. The town of Asilah deserves wider acclaim: it’s compact and atmospheric, with historic stone ramparts, a whitewashed centre and a blossoming street-art scene. Essaouira, Taghazout and busy, beachy Agadir, further south, are better known. Hang out with fishermen and local musicians or just fall in with the surfers and sunworshippers who return year after year. oncf.ma
THE WILD SOUTH
Southeast of Agadir, adventure awaits. Picturesque roads wind through Souss-Massa into the Anti-Atlas mountains, a dramatic, arid landscape of rough-hewn, coral-pink granite, thinly scattered with Tashelhit-speaking villages where markets draw Amazigh traders. The easy-going town of Tafraoute has an enviable location in hiking and mountain-biking country, while the pretty hamlets of the Ameln Valley and towering date palms of the Aït Mansour Gorge add flashes of colour. Continuing east into DrâaTafilalet via the saffron-growing region around Taliouine, visitors can catch their breath at the crossroads town of Ouarzazate before diving southeast through the Drâa Valley to Erg Chigaga on the Sahara’s northern fringes. This is the North African desert of the imagination: an almost untouched dunescape where camels plod across the sand and, after dark, the silence is absolute.