Morocco Discovery: Imperial Cities & Sahara

Fly into Marrakech Menara Airport and transfer by grand taxi to your riad in the medina. Riads are traditional courtyard houses — the exterior is blank and uninviting but the interior opens into a tiled courtyard with orange trees, mosaic fountains, and breakfast served under a sky blue with sunlight. Rest and orient yourself.

Walk through the souks north of Djemaa el-Fna — the copper-beaters souk, the spice market heaped with turmeric and dried rose buds, the carpet halls hung with Berber kilims. Visit the Bahia Palace — a 19th-century vizier's residence with rooms of cedar latticework and hand-painted ceilings. Explore Saadian Tombs, a necropolis sealed for 200 years and rediscovered in 1917.

As darkness falls, Djemaa el-Fna transforms — snake charmers, Gnawa musicians, acrobats, fortune tellers, and henna artists all compete with a hundred food stalls steaming with merguez sausages, snail broth, and fried fish. Eat at the stalls (avoid tourist-facing stalls; join queues of locals). Return to your riad rooftop for mint tea under the stars.

Visit the Majorelle Garden at opening time (8:30 AM) — cobalt-blue studios designed by French painter Jacques Majorelle, now owned by Yves Saint Laurent, surrounded by cactus gardens and pools of lily-covered water. The adjacent Musée Yves Saint Laurent building is stunning even from the outside. Walk the palm-grove Agdal Gardens if you want quieter green space.

The Medersa Ben Youssef — a 14th-century Quranic school — is Morocco's most beautiful building: carved plasterwork, cedar screens, and Zellij mosaic tiles covering every surface from floor to ceiling. Visit the El Badi Palace ruins — once described as one of the world's greatest palaces, now a haunting expanse of sunken gardens and stork-topped walls. The Museum of Marrakech in the old souk courtyard shows traditional crafts and artefacts.

Book a traditional hammam experience at a neighbourhood hammam — black soap scrub (kessa) followed by a full body exfoliation leaves skin extraordinary. Dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the medina — pastilla (pigeon and almond pie in flaky pastry dusted with icing sugar) followed by lamb mechoui and bastilla au lait for dessert.

Drive or fly to Fez (5–6 hrs by car with mountain scenery, or 1 hr flight). Check into your riad near Bab Bou Jeloud (the Blue Gate). Immediately enter the medina and hire a licensed guide from the official guide association — Fez el-Bali (the old walled city) is genuinely impossible to navigate alone and a guide provides historical context that transforms the experience.

Visit the Chouara Tannery from an overlooking terrace (vendors hand you fresh mint to mask the smell — accept it). The circular stone vats stained with saffron, poppy, and indigo have been dyeing leather since the 11th century. Walk to the Al-Attarine Madrasa next to the Kairaouine Mosque for another masterpiece of Moroccan geometric decoration. Browse the woodworking and brass souks.

Climb to the Borj Nord fortress viewpoint for sunset over Fez's white medina — 10,000 minarets and rooftop terraces stretching to the hills. Dinner at a traditional Fez restaurant: harira soup, pigeon bastilla, mechoui lamb, and chebakia honeyed pastries. Return through the medina by lantern light.

Depart Fez early by private car — the drive crosses the Middle Atlas Mountains through cedar forests where Barbary macaques beg at the roadside (don't feed them), past the Berber market town of Midelt, and through the dramatic Ziz Gorge. Pack snacks and a good playlist — it's a long but beautiful 7–8 hour drive.

Arrive Merzouga in late afternoon as the Erg Chebbi dunes — Morocco's largest, reaching 150 metres — glow gold in the slanting sun. Mount your camel for the 45-minute ride deep into the dunes to your desert camp. The silence is total; the scale of the dune sea in every direction is humbling.

Watch sunset from the top of the highest accessible dune — the shadows lengthen and the sand turns from gold to rust to violet. Back at camp, a Berber dinner is served around a fire: lamb tagine with preserved lemon and olives, flatbread from the sand oven, dates and tea. Lie outside the tent on a blanket watching the Milky Way arch overhead — zero light pollution, thousands of visible stars.

Wake before sunrise to watch the light arrive over the dunes from atop a high dune. A quick camel return and transfer begins the long drive northwest to Chefchaouen via Midelt and Fez bypass (7–8 hrs). The Rif Mountains announce themselves as blue-green ridges rising from the plain and the air suddenly smells of pine and cedar.

Arrive Chefchaouen and drop bags at your medina guesthouse. The medina is compact (you can walk end to end in 10 minutes) and entirely covered in dozens of shades of blue, from cobalt to periwinkle to powder — no one fully agrees why the town was painted blue, but theories range from Jewish settlers to anti-mosquito pigment. Stroll the photogenic lanes, particularly Plaza Uta el-Hammam and the Spanish Mosque approach.

Sunset from the Spanish Mosque hill overlooking the town — the blue city against the green Rif Mountains is one of Morocco's most beautiful views. Dinner of kefta (spiced lamb meatballs), fresh vegetable couscous, and Chefchaouen's specialty goat cheese. Walk the blue night lanes with local families as the cat population takes over the medina.

Wake at 5:30 AM for the Ras el-Maa waterfall walk — a spring-fed stream flowing through the upper medina where locals do laundry and children play. Hike the goat trail above town to the old Spanish Mosque for the definitive Chefchaouen photograph: blue rooftops spreading down the hillside with the Rif ridgelines behind. Return for a riad rooftop breakfast of Moroccan mint tea, msemen flatbreads with argan honey, and fresh orange juice.

Drive to Casablanca via Rabat (4 hrs). Stop at Rabat's Kasbah des Oudayas for a 30-minute walkthrough — a 12th-century citadel with blue-and-white painted lanes and a café garden overlooking the Atlantic. Continue south to Casablanca and check into your hotel near the Corniche.

Walk the Corniche boardwalk along the Atlantic Ocean. Visit the Hassan II Mosque exterior at night — it is built on a promontory over the sea, and the green laser from its minaret (the world's tallest at 210m) points towards Mecca. The surrounding esplanade is beautiful with the crashing Atlantic waves. Dinner at a Corniche seafood restaurant.

Walk the art deco neighbourhood of the Quartier des Habous (New Medina) — built by the French in the 1930s as a planned traditional Moroccan quarter; an odd and charming hybrid. The covered Habous market sells leather goods, babouches (slippers), and traditional sweets at more relaxed prices than Marrakech. Visit the Royal Palace exterior and nearby Mohammed V Square.

Tour the Hassan II Mosque interior if it is not a Friday prayer time (guided tours available, entry MAD 120). The mosque's interior holds 25,000 worshippers with a retractable roof, heated marble floors, and the longest nave in the world — extraordinary scale and craft. Transfer to Mohammed V International Airport for your departure flight.

Depart Casablanca with a suitcase of argan oil, Moroccan pastries, a kilim or two, and a head full of colour, sound, and spice that no amount of photographs will fully capture.